Inter’s nineteenth Scudetto is also the first title of a Chinese club in the top European Leagues. One more reason to be proud of the Gruppp Suning and the Zhang family who were among the main protagonists of the global football colonization campaign launched by the Beijing government and commissioned by President Xi Jinping. Moreover, the “Inter operation” was in danger of suffering the repercussions of the same Chinese centralist policy this season, considering that, thanks to the pandemic, the expansion policy in Western football, as an instrument of the Communist Party’s soft power, was judged no longer essential.
The reasons for a victory
The Nerazzurri’s success can be said to have also been born as a reaction to the financial and political problems that emerged in the middle of the season, although there were signs already in August. It may seem paradoxical, but it can be said that Antonio Conte on the pitch and the management off the pitch (with the ad Beppe Marotta e Alessandro Antonello primarily) were more resilient than President Xi. Having kept the team group together, leading it to achieve victories after victories in the second round, after the humiliating and harmful elimination in the groups of the Champions League, and having kept the bar straight between the financial and media waves that have shaken the club undoubtedly represent the two pillars of Inter’s success. And they allowed the Zhang family with greater strength and conviction not to give in to the difficulties encountered both in Italy and in China and which had even pushed to negotiate the sale with the BC Partners fund.
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The future and the accounts
The Scudetto and the return to the Champions League as a protagonist will allow us to plan the near future with more certainties. The 80 million that will be able to guarantee a landing in the quarter-finals (the next step in the climb to Europe) will make it possible to set up a transfer campaign less marked by sacrifice. This does not mean that self-sufficiency and therefore a correct relationship between income and expenses with a limatina at the cost of the squad (engagements plus amortization of cards) will be essential. After losing around 100 million as of 30 June 2020, the Nerazzurri will have to manage an even more marked loss at the end of this season, between 150 and 200 million (it will depend on the capital gains). Inter, which traveled to an average of 60,000 spectators, is together with Juventus the club that will suffer most from the closure of the stadiums, having seen more than 50 million in revenues from the box office and corporate hospitality fade.
The strategies to come
That acute emergency phase was overcome also thanks to the victories struck by Conte’s team. The price offered for Inter was also considered not very reasonable due to the scenario that was maturing on the pitch. In the plan of Steven Zhang evidently there was also the perspective of the project of the Superlega or work on the new stadium to be started. Two issues that pertain to the future of the club on which, regardless of the current operational difficulties, we cannot stop thinking and working. As well as in terms of digitization and internationalization. The search for a new main sponsor and the rationalization of partnerships in China (on which bad debts and lost collections persist) are priorities in the commercial area.
The financial requirement
In the immediate future, salaries and transfer market transactions of the season will be honored. With the title filed, negotiations for a 250 million loan will be closed in the next day. Two funds are still being discussed Bain e Oaktree,From a technical point of view, the loan will be granted to the parent company, Suning’s Luxembourg holding company, Great Horizon, and will flow into the club’s coffers in the form of a membership loan. An item that, rather than weighing on debt, should be interpreted as an asset of the shareholders’ equity. As it has already done for the other three-quarters of the funding made to the club, Suning will in fact transform this money into capital. A further demonstration of support for the football club, for which Suning has committed in various ways more than 700 million in five years. After the summer, the 375 million bonds relating to the bond issued by the club which expire in 2022 will therefore have to be renegotiated. In the meantime, the Lion Rock fund will sell its stake of approximately 31% in the Nerazzurri capital.