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15th September 2021
04:27pm BST
Away from focusing on his latest 'project', De Laurentiis is also a big fan of English football, stating that 'we Italians must learn from it'.
However, he and other owners are now worried that young people are becoming less interested with football.
"If we don't change the rules of the game and make it a better spectacle, young people will abandon us and football will no longer be the central part of our lives," stated a worried De Laurentiis.
"My research tells me that people between the ages of eight and 25 have stopped watching football and prefer playing with smartphones — they have totally transformed our children.
"I'm not saying that the habit of watching live football in a stadium will die, but now we have the 'virtual stadium', which can attract billions of people to play games against each other.
"Who knows if we will manage to get them back down the route of the greatest and most influential sport in the world?"
When De Laurentiis purchased Napoli in 2004, the Italian side were playing in the third division and were in something of a financial nightmare.
Nowadays, despite not winning a league title since 86/87, they have become one of Serie A's 'big boys' in recent years and have started this campaign in blistering fashion - winning their first three league games, including an impressive 2-1 victory against Juventus on Saturday.
Ahead of facing Brendan Rodgers' Leicester side on Thursday, they have been boosted by the availability of Victor Osimhen and David Ospina, who are now available to play, despite the pair playing in recent trips to red-list countries.
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