Napoli are being investigated for potential false accounting in the transfer deal which brought Nigeria’s Victor Osimhen to the Serie A club, prosecutors confirmed on Tuesday.
Prosecutors in Naples said in a statement that Italian finance police searched Napoli’s Castel Volturno and Rome offices to collect documents regarding Osimhen’s 70 million euros ($73.9 million) move from Lille in 2020.
They added that the searches come following requests from both Italian and French judicial authorities, with Lille having been also been the subject of a search in last month.
Italian media report that club owner Aurelio de Laurentiis was also under investigation.
Osimhen’s transfer was one of dozens of suspicious deals looks by Italian Football Federation (FIGC) investigators in a probe into allegedly inflated transfer values designed to artificially boost clubs’ balance sheets.
The deal stood out as it involved four players valued at just over 20 million euros moving to Lille as part of the deal.
Three of them never played for the French club and are now in Italy’s lower divisions.
One of the latter trio, Luigi Liguori, told Italian daily La Repubblica in December that he “never went to Lille” — not even to sign the contract—after being sold for four millions euros.
Movie mogul De Laurentiis was one of 61 people, including a raft of Juventus directors, who were acquitted of any wrong doing by the FIGC’s own tribunal in April.
The defendants successfully argued there was no objective way to gauge a player’s worth after prosecutors had based their own valuations on data from popular website Transfermarkt.
World Cup News
-
FIFA World Cup
/ 1 week agoSaudi oil giant Aramco agrees major FIFA sponsorship deal
Saudi Arabia’s state oil giant Aramco and world football governing body FIFA on Thursday...
By AFP -
FIFA World Cup
/ 1 month agoSon scores but Thailand hold South Korea in World Cup qualifier
Son Heung-min scored but South Korea were held 1-1 at home by Thailand in...
By AFP -
FIFA World Cup
/ 2 months agoJapan-N. Korea World Cup game to stay in Pyongyang, JFA says
Japan’s World Cup qualifier against North Korea will be played in Pyongyang as planned...
By AFP -
FIFA World Cup
/ 2 months agoGerman ex-FA bosses on trial over World Cup tax evasion
Three German ex-top football officials went on trial on Monday in a 13.7-million-euro ($14.8...
By AFP