Aurelio De Laurentiis, president of Naples, confirmed this Thursday in a letter that the San Paolo stadium will be renamed “Diego Armando Maradona” in honor of the soccer star who died this Wednesday at the age of sixty due to cardiac arrest. “Dear Diego, you leave us a sample of what a man is with all his fragility, his strength, his total love for life and for people. A unique and unrepeatable champion. Your weaknesses, your blemishes, your mistakes are equal to your immense greatness and are annulled to form a myth “, wrote De Laurentiis in a letter published by Naples on its website.
“I believe that it is correct to call San Paolo with your name, so that you continue with us as a demonstration of the path of excellence that this team has taken,” added Naples' top president. The proposal was launched this Wednesday by the mayor of the southern city, Luigi De Magistris, and De Laurentiis accepted it immediately, expressing his willingness to advance the bureaucratic procedures for the name change to occur as soon as possible. In his letter, De Laurentiis considered that Diego was “a painter of the ball”, whose “brushstrokes deserve to be kept in the Louvre museum”.
“Your years in Naples are indelible in the memory of the Neapolitans. Symbol of a desire for revenge and a longed-for resurrection. Thank you Diego, you are here and you will stay with all of us,” he added, signing the open letter. The message of President De Laurentiis, who relaunched Naples at the beginning of the 2000s and led him to the elite of the Champions League in recent campaigns, comes after the death of Maradona, this Wednesday at his home in Buenos Aires for cardiac arrest.
The city of Naples, in which Maradona won two league titles and a UEFA Cup between 1984 and 1991, is dedicating a long series of heartfelt tributes to his “D10S”, both in the San Paolo stadium area and in the “Quartieri Spagnoli “(Neighborhood of the Spanish). As of the Italian afternoon this Wednesday, Neapolitan fans placed candles, photos, T-shirts, scarves and banners to remember their eternal symbol. Hundreds of fans are still gathered outside the San Paolo to remember Diego, waiting for Napoli to play this Thursday in the Europa League against Rijeka.