Lazio president Claudio Lotito reflected on his two-decade spell in charge, this summer’s transfer market and the work for a new stadium.
The Biancocelesti picked up a number of reinforcements to bolster Maurizio Sarri’s squad this summer, including Valentin Castellanos, Daichi Kamada, Matteo Guendouzi and Nicolo Rovella.
Lazio are gearing up for their first Champions League campaign in two years, keen to show their best on the European stage, and will face Atletico Madrid, Feyenoord and Celtic in Group E.
Speaking to Radio Roma Sound fm90 (via La Lazio Siamo Noi), Lotito first discussed Lazio’s work in the summer transfer market.
Now what does money have to do with it? One thing is the technical aspect, and another is the economic aspect. I don’t think money is exhaustive for the purposes of building a great team. What’s the saying? Money isn’t everything, but it helps to live better.
It does help, but it’s not decisive. It is certainly true that a great campaign requires money to buy players, but it is also true that we have been able to manage the buying campaign with choices, which I think, and hope, will be rewarded at the end of the season.
The thing that makes me proud is that today Lazio’s squad, compared to when I took it over 20 years ago, which was a Cinderella story, a starting point, is now a point of arrival.
The club has credibility at all levels, especially at international level where, I’ve seen it with the various clubs, it’s considered and respected. Normally Lazio players were the object of attention and were bought by other clubs.
Today, on the contrary, it has happened that even Lazio has been able to buy players from big clubs, the same ones that had always bought Lazio players in history.
You know who I am referring to. This means that we are credible, that our growth project is taking shape.
The Lazio president touched on his goals and desires for the coming season.
I like to say that I do not sell dreams, but solid realities. I am for the policy of facts and not words. I don’t go on the pitch, but I think I have put the club in a position to have a competitive team.
Then on the pitch the players go there, and I hope they can express their full potential to be able to compete on equal terms, if nothing else, with other clubs.
Lotito discussed Lazio’s work to find a new home, possibly at the Stadio Flaminio.
With Veloccia we are working to give Lazio and the community a stadium. You’ll see that eventually in time, hopefully as short as possible, we can somehow give answers. We must definitely have our own stadium.
He was asked if the club would be able to do this before rivals Roma.
The approach is wrong. Here there’s no who comes first. Here there is the problem of resolving this issue. We want to do it, we’re not having a race of who arrives first and who arrives later.
We want to solve the problem in the best way possible so that we have a facility that is home to Lazio fans, where the Biancocelesti fans are happy to go and respect it because they consider it their home.
Finally, Lotito was asked if the Stadio Flaminio – an unused stadium in Rome – could be the site of Lazio’s new home.
The Stadio Flaminio is one of the hypotheses we’re working on.
I was against demolishing of San Siro, it’s beautiful stadium but Olimpico… yes, Lazio could use a new home. A modern football stadium without athletic race track.