August 29, 2024, 2:31 PM
August 29, 2024, 2:31 PM
He Naples signed Romelu Lukaku, from Chelsea, the Italian club announced on Thursday, putting an end to the limbo in which the Belgian striker found himself with the ‘Blues’.
The Italian club’s owner Aurelio De Laurentis confirmed the deal, valued at 30 million euros ($33.2 million), on social media, with the message “Welcome, Romelu” and an image of the player signing a three-year contract.
The move keeps Lukaku in Italy, where it will be his third league club after having been on loan to Inter Milan and Roma.
The 31-year-old was the idol of the Inter Milan fans when he led the ‘Nerazzurri’ to the ‘Scudetto’ in 2021, under the orders of the current Napoli coach Antonio Conte. That same year he was sold to Chelsea for more than 100 million euros.
The Belgian however He did not succeed on his return to Stamford Bridgeand his excessively high price kept him in limbo, as no club wanted to pay what the ‘Blues’ were asking for him.
That led him to return to Inter on loan in the 2022-2023 season, in which he suffered an injury and lost his post to Edin Dzeko.
When it looked like he was on the verge of being signed permanently by Inter again, the move fell through when the club learned that Lukaku was also eyeing moves to Italian rivals such as AC Milan or Juventus and eventually Chelsea ended up loaning him to Roma.
Despite this, the Roman team is not interested in acquiring his services and Conte will recover in Naples a goalscorer whose reputation in front of goal is on the decline, after a Euro 2024 without much success.
