The Rise, Fall, and (Rise?) of Inter Milan
The scene seems very blurry in Italy, in light of Juventus' threat of a possible relegation to the second degree, or at least its distancing from any ambition to win any title for years, after the ghost of the famous Calciopoli scandal returned to ruin any project for Juventus, at a time when the club was reeling. Indeed even if all this does not happen.
Fingers pointing towards Inter, in Italy, they always believe that the penalties of Juventus and those around it, from which Inter Milan comes out like a “hair out of dough”, raise doubts, suspicions that the Nerazzurri moved that as the fingers previously pointed towards Inter’s historical owner Massimo Moratti, the last of his descendants. The historical family that owned the Nerazzurri, before selling it to investors in the wake of the economic crisis that struck Italy in 2010, and greatly affected Calcio.
Amidst this fog, the question about the future of Inter in the coming years - and in light of the possible absence of Juve from the scene - seems logical, especially since the Nerazzurri succeeded in controlling the local scene in the wake of the Calciopoli scandal, and sealed that control with a historic triple in 2010 with Jose Mourinho, but as usual, crazy Inter, it is difficult to expect, and therefore the features of the scene indicate that he will not laugh much at Juventus!
A step back. Goodbye, champion Conte!
In Inter, everything indicated the beginning of a new era of control for the Nerazzurri on the scene in Italy, until October of 2021, when a major disaster was revealed, which was a record financial loss in its budget for the fiscal year 2020-2021 at a value of 245.6 million euros.
While It is considered the largest financial loss ever in the history of Italian football, before Juventus recorded 255 million euros in 2022, and of course, the matter did not happen between one day and one night, but its premises were clear to those who searched behind the scenes, despite the club’s move forward, and its return to ranks of the big boys.
These indicators appeared clear at the end of the 2020 season, specifically with the outbreak of the Coronavirus, as things were not going well inside Inter; The players dispensed with their salaries for two months, and their wages, which they had already received, were delayed and were not received on time.
This came after the club's delay in paying the first instalment of Achraf Hakimi's deal to Real Madrid for 5 full months, due to the absence of liquidity. As a result, the club became unable to invest and was forced to sell its stars, a situation that caused the departure of coach Antonio Conte, who hoped to maintain the strength of the main team at the very least in the event that there were no new contracts, to be followed by Achraf Hakimi and Romelu Lukaku.
The question here is: what is the reason for all this? And how does it happen in the best Inter season ever since 2010?
Here we will return to the summer of 2019, which can be shortened for the Nerazzurri in the phrase: “loan with the right to buy.” At that time, Inter included Barella, Sensei, Alexis Sanchez and Biraghi on a loan system with the right to buy, and got rid of Perisic, Icardi, Joao Mario, Nainggolan and Dalbert in the same system, and the result? Inter activates the purchase clause in the contracts of Barella, Sensei and Sanchez, and fails to sell all of its borrowed players except for Icardi.
Now imagine the situation, in just 6 months you contract with Eriksen in the winter, then bring Achraf Hakimi for 40 million euros, and activate the purchase clause for Sensi, Barella and Sanchez, and in return the players you got rid of on loan return to you because the clubs that obtained their services did not activate the purchase clause and therefore, you did not get the money you were waiting for to compensate for what you paid.
The issue is rather you became required to search for a way out for many names for which you cannot find a buyer, and those of them who left, left in the winter or summer of 2021 with small amounts and perhaps for free, in addition to leaving the group stage in The European Champions League for 3 years in a row, which deprived the club of about 115 million euros, and all this is happening amid huge economic losses for football clubs due to the Coronavirus.
After Corona
The tragedies did not end here. All of what I talked about so far was the problems inside the club. As for the owners, there is another tragedy related to their wealth.
It is known that Inter is owned by the Chinese Suning Group, managed by the Zhang family. Stephen Zhang, who currently heads Inter Club, confirmed that the situation is fine and that they have a plan for the next 5-10 years, but in July 2021, his father resigned as president of the Suning Group, after the group sold a 23% stake. With a value of $ 2.3 billion from its listed arm in the market, the man lost control of his company in the wake of the bailout plan led by the Chinese government.
Financial losses made the family reduce its activity outside China, and since then, there has been increasing news about the desire to sell the club. Over the previous period, the Chinese family has been denying this, but it cannot hide the heavy losses incurred by the club and incurred by them on a personal level. Therefore, the news of the sale remains more logical than the repeated attempts to deny it.
Hope appeared among the Nerazzurri fans through the emergence of Arab and American investments surrounding football, and already thinking about buying Italian league clubs, until Juventus got involved in financial scandals that may practically end the current Juventus season, I talked about that crisis in a two-parter which you can read part 1 by clicking here and part 2 by clicking here
As highlighted in the second of that series, Juventus may enter into a continuous crisis for several seasons to come, which of course It will affect the transparency of Calcio as a potential destination for investment, which precludes the hope for the emergence of a real investor who will move Italy's clubs to a new dimension. The only hope will be that Inter will show someone similar to the Suning Group, but without the restrictions imposed on it.
Over the past year, Inter has succeeded in renewing its basic elements; The renewal of Lautaro Martinez, Niccolo Barella, Milan Škriniar and Marcelo Brozovic was a positive step to preserve the pillars of the team, but it became clear in January of this year 2023 that the ship had been breached when Škriniar announced his free departure at the end of the season to Paris Saint-Germain.
This means that the spectre of the team’s disintegration began to loom over The horizon, especially with the increase in financial and spherical temptations around these elements, and so the tree continues to drop its leaves, and Inter has returned to become that club that is trying to build a team with minimal capabilities after it had begun to feel its steps towards returning to the leadership of Italy and the lights of Europe.
So, there was still hope, one named Beppe Marotta. But, more on that in the next part.