Napoli accused of inflating Osimhen's cost as Spalletti says striker underperformed against Fiorentina 

Napoli accused inflating Osimhen cost as Spalletti says Eagles star underperformed against Fiorentina

Serie club Napoli has been accused of inflating the cost of Super Eagles stiker Victor Osimhen deal by €20m, while Juventus had several exchanges with €60m in ‘fake’ profits, as the trial begins on Tuesday.

The FIGC has announced the first hearing in the court case will be held on Tuesday April 12 and they hope to have a final verdict by mid-May, before the end of the Serie A season.

Although many sources suggest we will see only fines and probably not a points penalty or even demotion, the figures in question are surprisingly large.

Calcio e Finanza claim to have viewed the paperwork of the court filing, showing huge inflated capital gains – plusvalenze – in exchange deals.

These allow the clubs to swap players and register them as being worth a certain amount, even when the actual transfer market value of the players is far less.

This enables them to balance the books by showing large sums of money or assets being moved around.

The clearest example was Napoli’s deal with Lille for Osimhen, which was officially for €71.2m, of which €20.1m was made up of four player exchanges.

However, the investigation decided the value of the players – Orestis Karnezis, Ciro Palmieri, Claudio Manzi and Luigi Liguori – was in fact €470,000, therefore inflating the cost of the operation by €19.3m.

This benefited both Napoli and Lille, as the Ligue 1 side were in financial trouble at the time and needed to show a massive profit from Osimhen’s sale.

The three youth team players never represented Lille and were released from their contracts a year later.

Juventus are accused of the same thing, but on a much larger scale and using the tactic systematically.

So while single player values weren’t inflated to the same degree, the cumulative effect was for €60.3m in non-existent profits.

Among them, Sampdoria goalkeeper Emil Audero’s transfer value was allegedly inflated by €7m, Pereira Da Silva Matheus by €6m, Manolo Portanova by €8m, Elia Petrelli by €7m and Pablo Moreno Taboada by €8m.

According to Calcio e Finanza, these profits still did not make enough of a difference to the finances of the club that it would’ve prevented them from registering for the Serie A season, so Juve are not facing a points penalty.

Meanwhile, Napoli manager, Luciano Spalletti has blamed Osimhen for his side’s 3-2 loss to Fiorentina on Sunday.

The manager noted that the Nigerian international was not at his best during the Serie A match at the Diego Maradona Stadium.

The Italian manager said his striker did not participate in some training sessions before the game following his return from Africa where he was with the Super Eagles for the internationals in March.

Despite the Nigerian scoring a goal and providing an assist during the game on Sunday, Spalletti wasn’t pleased with his overall display.

“Fiorentina plays man against man and leaves the field open. That can be exploited, but only if you come out of the duels with quality,” he told DAZN

“Probably something better could have been done in those long balls: Osimhen was not in top condition, he missed some training sessions and was fresh from his commitments with the national team, but he could certainly have done better in duels.”