NAPOLI HAVE SLAMMED “ridiculous” rumours that Rafael Benitez has gone AWOL over a fall-out with club president Aurelio De Laurentiis.
Benitez attended Uefa’s elite club coaches forum in Nyon during the week before heading for a visit to Liverpool, where he previously managed and some of his family still live.
It has been suggested in Italian outlets that Benitez’s trip to England was further proof of his strained relationship with Napoli’s president following his side’s Champions League play-off exit to Athletic Bilbao last week, but the Serie A club have insisted that the pair’s relationship is “excellent”.
“Reports today in some newspapers that Benitez taking a few days off is another sign that the relationship with De Laurentiis has ‘cracked’ is not only false but ridiculous,” Napoli said in a statement.
“The relationship between the coach and the president of Napoli is excellent as they themselves have repeatedly stressed.
“As already announced, Rafa Benitez took a few days off, after being in Nyon for the regular meeting between the coaches of the most important teams in Europe, to be reunited with his family in Liverpool.
“In addition the team, in the next five days, will rest three times. Benitez will return to Naples on Wednesday to resume the coordination of training on Thursday to coincide with the return of many absent national players, four days before the match with Chievo.”
Napoli, who won last season’s Coppa Italia, started the new Serie A campaign with a last-gasp 2-1 win at Genoa last week and resume their season at home to Chievo on 14 September.
