What's happening with the new Napoli shirts?

It was the end of April when the president of Napoli Aurelio De Laurentis announced that for the 2021-22 season the Neapolitan club would self-produce the kits with the design of Giorgio Armani's EA7. After two months - and above all just one month from the start of the championship - players and staff involved in Dimaro's retirement have not yet worn anything from the new line. At the moment Napoli has decided to put a patch on it, in every sense: the social uniforms are the same as last year, while Kimbo - who will no longer be a sponsor of the Azzurri - has been covered with a "SSC Napoli" patch on the whole material (polo shirts, shirts, training and game shirts). Even in the first friendly match against Bassa Anaunia, the only novelty was the absence of Kimbo.

ADL has entrusted the production of the new uniforms to Onis Swiss - anticipating the end of the contract with Kappa by a year - has admitted the fault in the delay which, however, today is creating a fair amount of confusion on the image of the team: Napoli continues to wear Kappa, ordered some material from Zeus and mock-ups of the new uniforms continue to circulate on the web.

In an interview with the official radio of Napoli, De Laurentiis declared that "the material and the shirts will arrive on August 20 and will have the EA7 logo, but we are very late and only in Castel di Sangro will we be able to present the new kits" as evidence of the fact that self-production - or at least the process of a new creative and production process - is not a walk in the park. It is of little use, if not to increase one's eccentric and often unbearable dialectic, to add that "the jerseys will be produced in Italy, China, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Turkey". The path that begins with concepts and culminates in production has an average duration of about eighteen months and to burn the stages, as Napoli is trying to do, is very risky considering also the rules that Serie A requires both in terms of timing and at the level of validation of the proposed model.

The day indicated by the president of Napoli anticipates by just two days the debut in the league of the Neapolitans, who will host the newly sponsored Venezia (Kappa, coincidentally). It's precisely from the Turin brand that ADL seems to have asked for a two-month derogation, thus covering July and August and trying to avoid legal problems that could be moved against SSC Napoli. There is no certainty about the outcome of the request, but in the meantime, in what is already an odyssey, on Twitter some fans present in Dimaro have photographed boxes that have arrived from Zeus to buffer the emergency situation. This is non-branded material that only shows the Napoli logo and the two jersey sponsors (MSC and Lete). The players yesterday already wore the items and some social accounts - such as @TutelaMagliaNA - have identified accessories that belong to the Campania brand.

To close the Naples ordeal there is the club's merchandising, on sale inside the retreat. Although the contract with Kappa was closed on June 30, 2021, the sale of the jerseys and collections produced last year continues. In all this paradoxical scenario, the players and Mister Spalletti "play down" by training with special shirts with writings that reflect the now famous chorus "Sarò con te e tu non devi mollare".

While self-production is a road that could lead to greater revenues for a club, on the other hand it is a long process that requires attention and maximum organization. There are technical times to start a new production and legal times that oblige a company to move well in advance. Napoli have not yet shown that they are up to such an important adventure. And the trolls have already started, not only aimed at Napoli. Celta Vigo has launched the new adidas jersey and with a guerrilla marketing operation has installed billboards in Naples, Rome and Manchester in which it is said that the blue of the Galician team is more beautiful than that of the Neapolitans, the Romans and the British. It would take a counter-proof, but we have to wait until August 20.