From Ancelotti to Spalletti: Napoli president’s poor man management may kill the club 

Napoli have finally ended the 33-year wait for another Serie A title, but Luciano Spalletti and possibly director Cristiano Giuntoli are walking away from President Aurelio De Laurentiis.

It is all too easy to understand the frustration of the ultras with their president, a man who represents so many mixed emotions since rescuing the club from bankruptcy two decades ago.

It is true that he nurtured the Italian giants back to health after they were forced to start again from the amateur divisions and rebuilt while keeping costs in check.

On the other hand, ADL has the movie producer’s knack of wanting to hog the limelight and take credit for absolutely anything that the team gets right, while simultaneously blaming everyone else around him for any shortcomings.

This has always been the way with De Laurentiis and it probably always will, as even winning the long-awaited Scudetto hasn’t tempered his worst instincts.

When the awards were handed out in the centre circle ahead of Napoli’s match with Inter, De Laurentiis and Luciano Spalletti walked out separately, posed separately and left the field separately.

This dragging out of the inevitable is only making things worse and casting a shadow over what ought to be the celebration of the Century in Naples.

People seem bemused and even shocked by Spalletti’s decision to walk away, but he has a very good point. This whole season was unexpected, from the success of the new players replacing old glories to the fact all their rivals were constantly tripping each other up to create a comfortable cushion at the top of the table.

Even reaching the Champions League quarter-finals was a success, before the traditional Spalletti April setback. It was too good to be true for Napoli supporters, and that is the problem. Whatever came after it would inevitably be a disappointment.

He seems all too aware that the other sides will reinforce, that Napoli will listen to offers for their biggest players and the next season can never even hope to match this one for consistency and entertainment.

After all, Spalletti already got a glimpse of what these fans can be like when unhappy, the protest over ticket prices and usage of banners during the 4-0 defeat to Milan at the Stadio Maradona was like an ice pick to the soul.

It is no coincidence that practically all the coaches who left Napoli in recent years did so after some sort of row with De Laurentiis. Maurizio Sarri probably would’ve won eventually, or at least continued to build a fascinating team, while Carlo Ancelotti was pushed before he could make a run for it, the same fate befalling Gennaro Gattuso.

Now Spalletti is dropping every hint he possibly can that the decision is his, but he’s leaving it to the club to announce, hoping to avoid the wrath of a spurned president.

It became public knowledge things were going to go awry when De Laurentiis took the microphone at the packed Stadio Maradona after that 1-1 draw with Udinese, mathematically sealing the Scudetto.

It was the perfect opportunity for him to thank those players who had since moved on, but gave a wonderful contribution, like Lorenzo Insigne, Dries Mertens, Kalidou Koulibaly and more.

Instead, he refused to name any of them, only declaring “the team felt weighed down by responsibility and we needed a group that felt light enough to take flight, not with individuals that were acting as brakes.” That was unnecessary.

When the press conference was held to outline their pre-season training camp, De Laurentiis said Spalletti’s name only once.

Now director of sport Cristiano Giuntoli wants to move on as well with an offer from Juventus. It feels like the President believes he could scrap the entire squad and staff, start again and still have the same results. The alchemy achieved this season was so rare as to be unique, he would be making a big mistake to assume this is the norm.