Naples and Napoli

The history of the team and the history of the city changed forever on May 10, 1987, with the victory of their first Scudetto. Napoli became the first Southern Italian team to win it, and still today, no other Southern football team has won a championship.

Foto: Carmine Romano @carmine_romano_ / Stylist: Roberta Astarita @roberta_astarita

The expression "social redemption" was used a lot when Napoli would play exciting football or win trophies. The term was especially used during the past year when Napoli was dominating Italian and European football. It is often heard in sport environments, but perhaps last year it was one of those times when the expression was not at all out of place. At least not for a great number of Neapolitans who had always, as journalist Mimmo Carratelli summarized, supported and motivated the team with extreme value. In a city long subjugated, misunderstood, and mistreated, the football team, capable of challenging and beating the teams of more progressive cities, represented the only means of visibility and affirmation. Over the decades, the Napoli team became a bit like a collector of social and economic rivalries, ambitions, and dreams. Emotions that were lacking in other areas of life, and leading all of this was not a saint, but there was a God, who at that time was Diego Armando Maradona. Since Napoli's last Scudetto, in 1990, 33 years have passed. 22 Italian governments, 8 mayors of Naples, 31 football coaches, and 5 football presidents have changed, along with a bankruptcy of the Napoli team. Reviving it was the film producer Aurelio De Laurentis, who still tries today to manage it with methods that are innovative even for “Serie A”, Italy's top football division. He does this mainly in two ways: Firstly, with a budget-conscious management. As of June 30, 2022, Napoli is one of three Serie A clubs to have a positive net financial position. The second way is with a buying campaign based more on rising young promises than on established football stars. If the average age of Serie A teams is 26.5, Napoli's is 26.1. And if the value of the squad calculated at the beginning of last year’s season was 446 million euros, by the end of it, it increased to around 543 million euros. These are all moves that have made Napoli a team that is financially stable but much more solid than other larger teams.

Foto: Carmine Romano @carmine_romano_ / Sittings editor: Roberta Astarita @roberta_astarita

Usually, the winning teams of European nations are also the richest ones. For example, Paris Saint Germain in France and Bayern in Germany. In Italy, Napoli last year was just the sixth richest club in Italy and has a turnover that is half that of Juventus, the football team that has won the most Italian championships, for example. However, Naples is actually one of the poorest cities in Italy. Around one in four people live in poverty, and it's something that you experience and see on a daily basis. So, the fact that Napoli won the Scudetto last year can be seen as a social redemption, but unfortunately, factually, that is not the case. On the one hand, because the problems persist. Naples suffers from a 21% unemployment rate, almost three times the Italian rate, and it remains the top city in Italy for both reports of mafia association and burglary with snatching. On the other hand, however, Naples has also changed so much in the past 33 years. Neighborhoods like Forcella, like the Quartieri Spagnoli, were absolutely not as you see them today. Today, Naples is the tenth most visited Italian city with 3.7 million tourists. In 2015, to be clear, it was 15th with less than 3 million. In 2023, it was also listed by Time Magazine as one of the 50 cities to visit in the world, the only Italian city along with Pantelleria. Finally, Naples is the destination of the trip, and not just a stop. To become even more of a destination city, Naples is preparing for the challenge of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. A billion euros are expected to be invested in new infrastructure, transportation, and waste disposal. Added to this is the 1.3 billion made available by the government to help Naples pay off the debt accumulated over the years: 5 billion euros, practically 5,000 euros per inhabitant. In exchange for this money, the Pact for Naples requires the city to commit to the introduction of new measures, such as better tax collection. It's as if the City committed to better management of itself, somewhat like the football team that won last year did. Here, perhaps the most beautiful words about this football victory came from the former captain of Napoli, Paolo Cannavaro. He hoped that this victory wouldn’t only be a redemption victory, but also one of foresight, of a new club model under the banner of a more sustainable football and future. An ending point, but also one of a new beginning.