De Laurentiis: 'Abolish Europa League'

By Football Italia staff

Napoli President Aurelio De Laurentiis said Walter Mazzarri has “a different concept of football” and wants to abolish the Europa League.

The movie mogul is still waiting for a response from his Coach, who refuses to discuss his future until the season is over and never signs on for more than two years.

“If it were up to me, I’d offer him a three-year contract. We know each other well and are two good people, but we have different concepts of football. I am the new, while he has the culture of the past,” De Laurentiis told Radio Deejay.

“He tells me, ‘President, if you just say that we won’t win the Scudetto, then we can build a team of young players.’ Maybe by seeing Borussia Dortmund’s example, he could change his mind. Mazzarri is a loyal and fair person, something that is hard to find in football.”

De Laurentiis has many plans for changing the sport, including a radical rethink of UEFA tournaments.

“The Champions League brings in money, whereas the Europa League costs clubs money. The Europa League should be abolished, as it is of no interest to the media, nor to the fans seeing as the stadiums are often half-empty.

“This competition does not bring a healthy economic return for the clubs. Instead, it just ruins the domestic campaigns because teams who play on two fronts inevitably lose something in terms of their League form.

“I think we absolutely must amplify the Champions League, maybe bringing in six or seven teams per country.

“By increasing the Champions League and cutting down the Serie A fixture list, we are doing the right thing for the fans and the sport.

“There also needs to be uniformity of the rules, as there are too many differences between Germany, Spain, France, England and Italy.”

De Laurentiis again went back to the example of German runners-up Borussia Dortmund.

“There are two trends. Borussia adopt my philosophy, which is that it’s better to grow champions in house. It takes patience and you must resist the pressure.

“Bayern Munich on the other hand take all the best they can get their hands on and change every two or three years to keep motivation fresh. Now we’ll see Pep Guardiola at Bayern Munich without the Barcelona academy behind him.”

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