Serie A champions Napoli risk being fined or docked points if found guilty of false accounting in the deal to sign Nigerian striker, Victor Osimhen from Lille in 2020, PUNCH Sports Extra reports.
Napoli president, Aurelio De Laurentiis was questioned on Wednesday as part of an investigation into the transfer for the 25-year-old.
When the Partenopei signed the former Wolfsburg player in September 2020, the deal was valued at €76,356,819, which included the apparent market value of four players who made the switch to Lille as part of the transfer.
The market value for these players total around €20m, with the breakdown as follows; Ciro Palmieri for €7,026,349, Orestis Karnez for €5,128,205, Luigi Liguori for €4,071,247 and Claudio Manzi valued at €4,021,762. Investigators allege that these market values were inflated to help Napoli’s books.
According to Italian publication, Il Messaggero, if Napoli are not acquitted of the charges, they stand to get a fine or docked points.
“There are three possible paths, a new acquittal, a fine or a slight penalty in the rankings (league table),” the report read in part.
Calciomercato.com details how De Laurentiis arrived at the FIGC prosecutor’s office in Rome on Wednesday accompanied by his lawyer Fabio Fulgeri and was subjected to 90 minutes of questioning by deputy prosecutor Giuseppe Cascini, as part of the investigation into false accounting.
One of the players involved in the deal, Liguori, spoke out about the situation back in 2021.
“It wasn’t a deal done for us, for our futures. It was for something else. We got pushed out of Napoli with ‘guilt’. Because we didn’t know anything,” he said.
Osimhen recently signed a new contract with Napoli in December, with his release clause set around €130m. The Nigeria international is expected to depart Naples this summer for a club in the English Premier League or Paris Saint-Germain in France.
