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There Will Be Champions League Matches At The San Paolo After Napoli Reach Deal With City

The club were able to come to an arrangement with the city of Naples in advance of UEFA's ultimatum, and there will be Champions League matches at the Stadio San Paolo this season.

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Thanks to UEFA being a bunch of overly-picky, over-zealous jerks, there was a risk earlier this week that they wouldn't allow Napoli to play this season's Champions League matches at their own home stadium.

You see, Napoli and the city of Naples had yet to come to a lease agreement for the upcoming season for the use of the Stadio San Paolo. There was no risk of a deal not getting done, it just wasn't done yet because the two sides were haggling over matters related to the renovation of the stadium.  UEFA didn't like that there wasn't a deal in place, didn't care that it wasn't actually a problem of any kind, and threatened to force Napoli to play their Champions League matches in Palermo if they didn't get a deal done by Thursday.

Fortunately for the partenopei faithful, that won't be a problem. According to Italian news outlet ANSA, the club and the city came to an agreement on Wednesday that satisfies UEFA's demands and puts a workable plan in place for the season. The deal is just for this season, but gives the two sides plenty of time to hammer out any lingering issues in the renovation agreements before the next lease is due next summer, if that would even be an issue.

Long story short: suck it, UEFA.

It wasn't reported if this is going to have any affect on the timeline for the San Paolo's renovations. Presumably the club and city can come to a side arrangement for anything that needs doing if that is a problem, and any plans for work done during this season can go ahead as scheduled. The renovations were expected to be completed in time for the 2016/2017 season per some recent reports.