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De Laurentiis replies to Higuaín insults and looks to Milik future
The Napoli president says that now everyone refers to Higuain as "a player from another planet" and compares him to Milik when he first arrived.
Leaving on bad terms
Aurelio de Laurentiis and Gonzalo Higuain have something of a love-hate relationship which exploded when the Argentine striker signed for rivals Juventus. The Turin club paid the 90 million euros of the player's release clause as the Napoli president dug in his heels refusing to budge.
"We were not ready to sell. For me Higuaín was not for sale," De Laurentiis said in an interview with the Evening Standard before going on to confirm that he had offered him a contract extension for five years a year earlier as well as more money than he now earns at Juve. But he wanted to go.
In the interview the Napoli president also clarified that both Arsenal and Atletico Madrid had made offers for the striker but that they "didn't put enough money on the table"
Higuain showed disrespect to the fans
At his presentation with Juventus, Higuaín revealed his reasons for leaving Naples saying that the relationship with De Laurentiis "pushed me to make this decision - I couldn't spend another minute with him." These were words that hurt the Napoli president: "To say that his move to his 'new family' is my fault is disrespecting Napoli fans. If you have no shame, you can betray these people, but you cannot tease them," he said.
Milik - the new player from another planet
On new signing Arkadiusz Milik, a Polish international who arrived for £31m from Ajax, the president made some comparisons:
“Milik is a good player. He’s fantastic. Everybody now is saying Higuain is from another planet but I remember when Higuain came to Napoli they were not so convinced. Real Madrid were doing well but he was not playing all the time. Also with Argentina he had made some mistakes – it can happen to everybody.
“Right now Higuain is from another planet. Probably in two years they will say the same for Milik. The soccer ‘blah, blah, blah, blah’ is always the same.”
