Naples, Centro Paradiso for sale: it was the field of Maradona

That work of art on the surrounding wall remains the only beautiful thing in that center whose name today appears out of tune: Paradise. Built in 1975 as a training ground with adjoining company headquarters and press room, in the Eighties the Centro Paradiso had its maximum splendor when Diego Armando Maradona’s team trained here. Then the decline until the failure of the SSC Napoli in 2004, the center remains unused and is vandalized over time. Today only a rusty gate remains, an open space full of brushwood where you can guess there was a football field and the remains of the old structures around it. The only vivid memory is the mural created by Mario Casti Farina a couple of years ago, which drew little Dalma, the eldest daughter of the Maradona, who gently slips a daisy into dad Diego’s sock, protruding towards the little girl. Dalma herself, now 35, stopped here moved last December, concluding her documentary on her father.

What will become of it

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After years in which the structure had ended up in banking institutions in the case of bankruptcy and the satisfaction of creditors, all the procedures for which the center can be sold have now been concluded and it seems there are entrepreneurs interested in creating a private health facility. In fact, in the destination of the urban plan, the Center must have a sporting and neighborhood destination. And for this reason the Centro Paradiso association has been fighting for years, born in the Soccavo district to try to revalue that structure that is now dilapidated. A strong group of volunteers who will also try, through a popular fundraiser, to buy the Center. But since it is an important page in the history of the city, it would be appropriate for the Municipality to enter the field by placing binding constraints on what remains of the facility, perhaps creating a neighborhood sports center, which could bear the name of Maradona. Hoping that it does not end up as the native house of Totò, for too many years in indecent conditions in the Rione Sanità.