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Napoli vow media silence until Higuain appeal result announced

Napoli won't be doing the usual pre-match media circuit before the Hellas Verona match.

Maurizio Lagana/Getty Images

There's a storm brewing around Napoli right now as the club is embroiled in the mess of Gonzalo Higuain's suspension and appeal. The media is circling, opinions are divided in the fanbase and the general populace, tension around the club is rising -- and Napoli are dead silent. And according to the club themselves, they're going to stay that way.

The club's last official media statement before going dark was that they were going to boycott the press until the results of Gonzalo Higuain's appeal were announced. That includes the usual pre-match media circus of press conferences and interviews and and player availability, and may even include the usual post-match press conference given that Maurizio Sarri is suspended for the match.

It may seem a little excessive, but Napoli have already been having issues with the media of late -- they briefly boycotted Mediaset recently because the outlet was distributing false reports about Higuain's contract status. So with that added to the current circumstances, Napoli wanting to not feed into any more media narrative is pretty understandable.

Napoli even went so far as to say that the decision is "not out of anger," and that the club would simply rather not create an impact on whatever judgement the disciplinary panel makes on their appeal. That makes a lot of sense, because there's really nothing that Napoli can do to help Higuain's case at this point -- anything they say will at best be neutral for his chances of getting a reduced ban, and could actually hurt his chances.

So don't expect to hear from Napoli for a bit -- and when you do hear from them again, don't expect them to be happy, given the amount of backlash they've been taking of late.