Napoli have dismissed a report which appeared in today’s print edition of Gazzetta dello Sport which claimed contract renewal talks with both Dries Mertens and Piotr Zielinski had stalled with an official statement on their club website.

The report claimed that both players did not wish to proceed with contract renewal talks until issues relating to the squad mutiny which took place earlier on this season were resolved.

Mertens current contract with the Stadio San Paolo club is due to expire at the end of this season and as a result of this a number of clubs have been linked with signing him on a bosman deal.

Inter, Chelsea, AS Monaco and Roma have all been linked with signing the 32-year-old Belgian national team attacker who has been plying his trade in Naples since 2013.

Zielinski meanwhile has little over a year on his current contract with the club and he has been linked with a move to Premier League outfit Everton.

Napoli’s statement reads: “Napoli note with some perplexity that yet again an article, in today’s Gazzetta dello Sport, written by Maurizio Nicita, full of inaccuracies and references to untrue circumstances is published, embedded in contexts and situations not verified by the author.

“The perplexity derives from the fact that a journalist, before writing background and reconstructions of facts, should listen to all parties concerned to ascertain the truthfulness of what is then reported to readers.

“And in the case of today’s article, which concerns the negotiations for the contractual renewals of Zielinski and Mertens, this has not been done.

“A ‘piece’ has been written, inventing meetings, dates, numbers and critical issues of negotiations among other things, evidently drawing on only partial and, moreover, poorly informed sources.

“One wonders how it is possible that Gazzetta dello Sport, a historical, authoritative and internationally-renowned newspaper, allows articles without the minimum requirements regarding the reliability of reported facts, such as those in question, to go in print.

“Unfortunately, it is not the first time that this has happened, but Napoli will always be on the side of readers who have the right to know real and verified news.”