Napoli President Aurelio De Laurentiis urges more reconstruction work on the Stadio San Paolo and to follow the English model of stadiums.
The patron has repeatedly referred to the arena as “a toilet” and even planned work to fix the bathrooms, dressing rooms and some of the seats represents only the start.
Napoli President Aurelio De Laurentiis urges more reconstruction work on the Stadio San Paolo and to follow the English model of stadiums.
The patron has repeatedly referred to the arena as “a toilet” and even planned work to fix the bathrooms, dressing rooms and some of the seats represents only the start.
“We want to bring the San Paolo to a European level, seeing as we’ve been protagonists on the continent for nine years and should no longer be ashamed to welcome teams to this arena,” De Laurentiis told reporters at the Sabato delle Idee event.
“The San Paolo in the era of Diego Maradona is exactly the same as it is now. We noticed the difference with other stadiums starting from the very tough Margaret Thatcher laws against hooligans in England in the 1980s.
“When we go to the Emirates, as we will to face Arsenal in the Europa League quarter-finals on April 11, we see they spent £350m to build over 3km between stadium, offices and stores.
“The day I first arrived at Napoli, I wanted to change the San Paolo with the architect who designed the Hotel Gallia in Milan. I wanted two 1km high skyscrapers, but the Mayor at the time called me crazy.
“Why should I be crazy? I could build a skyscraper in so many places around Naples and it’d be talked about all over the world. People are tired of hearing about Naples only with regards to guns, Mafia and Gomorrah.”