#2 Gokhan Inler to Napoli, 2011
And so we go from cheesy to just plain bizarre. Napoli had been linked with Udinese’s Swiss midfielder Gokhan Inler throughout the 2010/11 season, but it didn’t look like the deal would go through, with clubs such as Arsenal also supposedly in the race to sign him. Those doubting Napoli evidently didn’t take into account the sheer eccentricity of chairman Aurelio de Laurentiis – a film producer from a family full of them.
A presentation on a cruise ship – in itself pretty bizarre - was organised in July 2011, supposedly to launch Napoli’s new kit for the 2011/12 season, and more than a few eyebrows were raised when de Laurentiis called out a man in a lion mask to model the new shirt. Napoli’s mascot is, of course, a donkey, so the choice of the mask was strange, to begin with.
Suddenly though things went from strange to downright bizarre. The masked man stood next to the chairman before turning to reveal the number 88 – the squad number Inler had worn at Udinese – before pulling off the mask to reveal himself as the Swiss midfielder.
The stunt was like something straight out of WWE rather than football but seemed to fit Napoli’s eccentric image at the time. Inler ended up staying at the club for four seasons before a move to Leicester City – one that was announced in a much more conventional fashion!
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