Napoli President Aurelio De Laurentiis claims that the reports around Antonio Conte were ‘just gossip to demolish’ current coach Rudi Garcia and slammed Juventus director Cristiano Giuntoli.
The patron spoke to reporters at the Castel Volturno training ground today, where he has been spending several days during the break for international duty to show his closeness to the squad and Garcia.
There were reports that De Laurentiis was ready to fire Garcia in order to bring in Conte, who promptly insisted he would prefer to continue spending time with his family.
“I had a vacation with Conte years ago in the Maldives, his family was there too, and we maintained a good rapport since then,” explained De Laurentiis.
“I am still in contact with Walter Mazzarri, Carlo Ancelotti, Rafa Benitez, Edy Reja… the rest is just gossip to demolish who is currently working with the team and that irritates me.”
The President also hit out at former Napoli director Giuntoli, who demanded to be released from his contract this summer to join Juventus.
“Giuntoli had been halfway out the door for six months, continuing to repeat: Will you send me to Juventus? I asked what is this, suddenly you have become a Juve fan? Here we always considered Juve to be our number one sporting enemy! A sporting director must have the culture of humility and hard work, and he did have that.”
De Laurentiis also tried to take away the credit for Giuntoli scouting Kvicha Kvaratskhelia.
“It was not him. Kvara was mentioned to my son Edoardo and then it was passed on to Giuntoli. He picked many good players here and got just as many wrong, that is life. Giuntoli is a fine professional who to my great surprise went to Juve.”
Kvaratskhelia was the bargain of the season when secured from Dinamo Batumi in Georgia for just €13.3m, going on to be an integral part of their Scudetto campaign and Champions League run to the quarter-finals.
Saltiness runs through this guy’s veins.