Antonio Conte named new Napoli coach

ROME: Former Chelsea and Tottenham coach Antonio Conte was hired by Napoli on Wednesday as the deposed Serie A champions try to bounce back from their disastrous league title defence.

“Welcome Antonio,” the club´s president and owner Aurelio De Laurentiis wrote on X, formerly Twitter, accompanied by a photograph of Conte signing his contract. Conte, who has also coached Juventus and Inter Milan, has signed a three-year deal which according to Italian media is worth eight million euros ($8.7 million) per season.

“I can promise you one thing. I will do my utmost to grow this team and this club,” Conte said. De Laurentiis described Conte as a “high-level coach and a leader who is going to allow us to rebuild at the conclusion of a cycle”.

Conte is the fifth Napoli coach of the last year in a chaotic period for the club which in the 2022-2023 season won their first Serie A title since 1990, when Diego Maradona was still strutting his stuff.

But the coach who won the title, Luciano Spalletti, left last summer and southern Italy´s biggest club went through three managers on their way to a dismal 10th-place finish this season.

Napoli ended the season 41 points behind new champions Inter as Rudi Garcia, Walter Mazzarri and Francesco Calzona, who joined on a short-term contract, all failed to live up to Spalletti´s historic title win.

Spalletti is now in charge of the Italian national team. Conte has been charged with taking Napoli back up the table, and has a pedigree which will give fans hope of a quick turnaround in fortunes.

The 54-year-old has won four Serie A titles, three with Juve and one with Inter in 2021, and was also a Premier League winner with Chelsea in 2017. Conte will almost certainly have to do without star striker Victor Osimhen, who is a target for some of Europe´s biggest clubs.