“There was nothing concrete with Sheikh Al-Sabahonly a soap opera was created and speculations arose. There is no for sale sign outside the stadium, but we are available to meet potentially interested people.” The president of Bari Luigi De Laurentiis in the press conference held today he returned to talk about possible corporate developments, removing the shadow of the sheikh of Kuwait who seemed interested in purchasing the club in the summer: “The document he sent us was not concrete and we did not consider it interesting for sit at the negotiating table. The sheikh has my number and I have his in case I am interested in investing in Kuwait, but since we exchanged them I have not received a single message and faced with a less concrete document it is useless to move forward. – continues De Laurentiis – I haven’t worked here for 7 years to leave the company at the first person who comes along. There is no need to put up a for sale sign because we will sit down and talk to anyone, but when I sell the club I will do it at the best possible offer and to whoever will be able to take Bari as high as possible”.
Then there is room for current events and the current championship: “With great ambition, also with regards to investments, I declared that I could aim for the play offs. This is a very complex championship, with teams with small budgets beating others with very large budgets, and which is becoming unsustainable given that this year we will have a few million less from the League. Furthermore, among the top nine in the rankings there are clubs with foreign ownership or those that have been relegated and have significant funds for the category and this makes the tournament even more competitive.”
De Laurentiis then talks about the group created in the summer, the work of the coach and that of the management: “I’m happy with the group that was built in the summer, it wasn’t obvious, yesterday Mister Longo reminded me that at the beginning of August he told me to have a group of men give me initial feedback on this. The most important choice made by the management was the human aspect. When I spend time with them I feel the unity of the group, the kids’ desire to be together and these are important qualities. Credit for this must also be given to the coach and the sporting director. – continues the president – We are in the third year of the project, even when I arrived here I said that we would arrive in B in three years and then we took four, but let’s create projects. In football it is difficult to achieve the objectives you set your sights on, so far we have managed to do so starting from Serie D and coming close to Serie A. Then there was also a difficult year, which marked us a lot and perhaps helped us to start again. This year I’m happier and I believe that if we get to the play-offs we could play it all the way.”
Bari’s number one then also focuses on the relationship with Napoli with which he shares ownership: “Comparing the two places is impossible. Napoli won the Scudetto after twenty years of hard work and investments built over time by playing in a championship that has completely different revenues from Serie B. Today Bari invests significantly, losing millions every year in a championship that is completely distorted and sees teams that have invested three times more than us and are behind us. The budgets are public, this year too we will have 24 million costs and we will be at a loss, but we are doing our best. Napoli also demonstrates that it is possible to stay in the Champions League with lower wages than the other teams. – concludes De Laurentiis – If the law on timeshares changed, it would change a lot for usin recent years they have expanded worldwide, just think that the owners of Roma have also bought Everton and the two clubs could one day compete with each other”.
Finally, a thought on the sales of Caprile and Cheddira to Napoli which caused so much discussion a year ago: “The capital gains we obtained with their sales allowed us to pay and survive, then I heard a lot of bullshit last year. That those money had been spent to get players sold after a week. I hope that the relationship with the square can change with the sporting results, I am happy to have managed to rebuild a good group of people who know how to work well.”