Football & business

De Laurentiis' Napoli: 20 years of financial success in Italian football

The fourth Scudetto certifies the status of a club that has grown on balanced accounts and now faces crucial challenges such as Europe and new facilities

by Marco Bellinazzo

25 May 2025

Napoli, 24 maggio 2025 Aurelio De Laurentiis - Reuters/Remo Casilli

4' min read

Key points

The business model
Pillars of Balance
Record of budgets in profit
Growth and challenges

4' min read

Twenty years. Two championships, the third and the fourth in the history of a club founded in 1926, therefore close to a century old, which had experienced its epic with Diego Armando Maradona on the field at the end of the 1980s. And which is now rediscovering itself at the centre of the footballing stage, in a new winning dimension and with a future to be written.

Antonio Conte, the last of the condottieri, will have food for thought in the coming days. The architect of this new golden age, president Aurelio De Laurentiis, who has also enriched the Azzurri's trophy cabinet with three Italian Cups - the first title won in 2012 - and a tricolour Super Cup, on Friday night, with the victory just clinched, promised major signings for next season's European campaign. The new goal of the Neapolitan club.

Purchases that - this is the point - Napoli can afford, constituting a unicum on the Italian and European sporting scene (one could cite for the balance of accounts and profitability of the project the unreachable Bayern Munich, which, however, has among its partners giants such as Audi, Allianz and Adidas, as well as an army of over 300,000 other shareholders).

The business model

The management hinging on balanced accounts was only undermined by the pandemic, yet Napoli managed to post an overall surplus, offsetting the 130 million losses in the budgets from 2020 to 2022 with the record profits of 80 million and 63 million recorded in 2023 and 2024 respectively.

The season of the third Scudetto (2023) set a record for Serie A profits and a record turnover for the Neapolitan club (excluding capital gains) of 275 million.

All this allowed Napoli to accumulate liquid assets of EUR 210.5 million by 30 June 2024, resulting in a positive net financial position of EUR 135 million.

At the end of this season, despite the absence of Champions League revenues - an exception compared to the assiduous participation in European cups in the De Laurentiis era - thanks to the bonus capital gain ensured by the January 2025 sale of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia to Psg for 75 million (in the summer, the equally lucrative sale of Victor Osimhen is expected), these numbers could be anything but worse. Giving De Laurentiis' club more than enough resources for a market as ambitious as last summer's.

The Pillars of Balance

Just after Conte's arrival, De Laurentiis opened the purse strings and spent around 150 million on the market, departing from some self-imposed rules on the investment in players, to be hired only if they have prospects for development.

In fact, the club's Serie A accounts, with costs more or less in line with classic revenues (national TV rights, stadium and commercial area) have historically been kept in order by resorting to capital gains and revenue from the Champions League (and to a lesser extent the Europa League).

Capital gains, also considering the January market, generated earnings of around 750 million (a record 104 million in 2017, including 86 million for the sale of Gonzalo Higuain to Juventus).

Napoli obtained about 550 million from Uefa for its participation in European events (14) (just under 440 from the eight Champions League qualifiers). In total, these two items have brought the club 1.3 billion out of the almost 4 billion euro total turnover realised between 2005 (the year of the first Filmauro budget) to 2025. Almost a third of the revenue.

Profit balance sheet record

Aurelio De Laurentiis, as he often recalls, took over the club in 2004 from the ashes of bankruptcy. At the time, he obtained a 32 million loan from Unicredit, which was repaid after just three years with the club's proceeds, and then brought in 16.6 million as capital to cover the Serie C deficits. Back in Serie A, with a young, low-cost but immediately competitive squad, he has racked up eight consecutive profitable balance sheets.

Between 2005 and 2024, the accounts closed in positive territory - the worst balance sheet was closed in 2021, due to the pandemic and the absence from the Champions League, with a red balance of 58 million - were no fewer than 12 and allowed the accumulation of more than 140 million in profits as at 30 June 2024.

In these 20 seasons, no dividends have ever been paid out, while the chairman and his family members on the board of directors have been paid more than EUR 40 million.

Growth and challenges

From around 100 million when the club returned to Serie A in 2009, revenues related to national TV rights, the stadium and the commercial area have risen steadily, now fluctuating between 150 and 200 million. The Parthenopean club has already shown that it knows how to improve its economic performance, trying to raise the level of premium hospitality, net of the architectural limitations of the Maradona stadium, and also with counter-cultural choices such as, for example, with the self-production of the game jersey, albeit accompanied by the EA7 brand.

It is no coincidence, therefore, that commercial revenues (from sponsors and merchandising) rose to 70 million in 2024 after having been stuck between 30 and 40 million seasons for years, and stadium-related revenues have more than doubled in the last three seasons.

If the twenty-year Del Laurentiis management has so far been focused on economic-financial sustainability, privileging investments in infrastructure over those in the player pool, the time has come for a change of pace and to face these challenges - from the new sports centre to the renovation of the Maradona stadium -, which are indispensable to increase ordinary income and 'monetise' the club's increasing international visibility.