Abandoned training ground with links to Diego Maradona bought by Ballon d’Or winner with new look planned
An abandoned plot of land made famous by Diego Maradona will be reopened after being purchased by Fabio Cannavaro.
The 2006 Ballon d'Or winner revealed over the summer that he had bought the land of the Centro Paradiso, the former training base of Italian giants Napoli.
It was there that the Naples-based side spent almost 40 years as they developed some of football's biggest talents such as Cannavaro and attracted star names like Maradona who trained there every day for seven years during his time at the club in the 1980s.
Such was Maradona's reputation at the Soccavo-based training ground, a mural was created on the outer walls depicting Maradona and his daughter Dalma, due to his legendary reputation as someone who would entertain locals with flicks and tricks on the playing field.
The grounds boasted a football pitch, changing rooms and a stadium where eagle-eyed fans could get a glimpse of stars such as Maradona, Chelsea legend Gianfranco Zola and Cannavaro in action.
However after opening in 1975, the training base had been left derelict after Napoli were declared bankrupt in 2004.
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Cannavaro, renowned as one of football's greatest-ever defenders, started his career with Naples where he trained on the ground as an academy player before breaking into the first team.
He made 68 appearances for Napoli before moving to Parma in 1995.
But the World Cup winner has always remembered his roots and after purchasing the land, Cannavaro has set about opening a football school to offer something back to the local community where he realised his dreams of being a professional footballer.
Discussing the purchase, Cannavaro said: "I found everything destroyed, in fact I didn't find anything that was there.
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"The project is to redo the pitch, but also the stadium.
"I want to create a football school for the kids in the neighborhood and for those who want to come.
"It's not easy to distract young people from cell phones, TVs, consoles and for this reason I want to create something beautiful.
"The timing? I don't know yet, it's early."
In Napoli, Cannavaro started the sort of career that many could only dream of.
As well as playing for Inter Milan, Juventus and Real Madrid among others, the defender won 136 caps for Italy, three league titles and a World Cup for his country in 2006.
When Maradona arrived in Naples in 1984, no team from the south of Italy had won the league before but all that changed with the so-called Saviour.
With Maradona in the side, Napoli won the title in 1987 and 1990 and the stadium was renamed in his honour from the Stadio San Paolo to the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona following his shock death at the age of 60 in 2020.