Lazio president Claudio Lotito admits he's proud of the state of the squad.

Lazio, under coach Maurizio Sarri, are preparing for a new Champions League campaign.

Lotito told Radio Roma Sound fm90, "I'm an Arab in Italian football? Now what does money have to do with it? The technical aspect is one thing and the economic aspect is another thing. I don't think that money is exhaustive for the purposes of setting up a great team.

"As they say 'Money isn't everything, but it helps to live better'. It actually helps, but it's not that it's decisive. Surely a large transfer campaign needs money to be able to buy players, but it's equally true that we were able to manage the transfer campaign with choices, which I think and I hope, can reward at the end of the championship.

"The thing that makes me proud," continued Lotito, "is that today the Lazio squad, compared to when I took it twenty years ago, which was a Cinderella, a starting point, today is a point of arrival. It has credibility at all levels, especially at an international level where, I have found with the various clubs, it is considered and respected. Normally, Lazio players were the object of attention and were bought by other clubs. Today, vice versa, it has happened that Lazio too was able to buy players from big clubs, the same ones who had always bought Lazio players in history. This means that we are credible, that our growth project is taking shape."

On the championship, he said: "I like to say that I don't sell dreams, but solid realities. I am for the politics of facts and not words. I don't go on the pitch, but I think I have put the club in the position of having a team that's competitive. Then the players go onto the pitch and I hope they can express their full potential to be able to compete on an equal footing, if nothing else, with the other clubs."