L’era Zhangwhich brought Inter back to the top of the Italian championship and into the first tier of the European elite, it now has an expiry date, like a Danone yogurt or a Buitoni pesto.
Oaktree has finally released its reservations and put my foot on the accelerator to close the diatribe linked to the loan granted to Suninga loan with an interest rate bordering on usury and unthinkable for a group in economic crisis.
Moral of the story, or Suning releases the plata necessary to cover the loan received, or Oaktree will pay off the Chinese group and take full possession of the Nerazzurri club. Once this first phase is completed, Oaktree will capitalize on its dominant position in the ‘Plata o Plomo’ trade by selling the club to a buyer whose identity we do not yet know.
For intellectual honesty it must be said that the Zhang and the Nerazzurri management have done an excellent job in recent yearsbringing Inter back to the place it deserves with few pesetas and definitively archiving the horribilis period of Thorir’s management, which had transformed the Nerazzurri squad into the Lombard’s stand-in.
Zhang, Marotta & Ausilio have built a winning project, they have always filled San Siro, they have closed important sponsorship agreements (with the exception of the DigitalBits case), they have increased merchandising and secured the best agreements linked to Inter’s television rights. And, above all, they created an enthusiasm around the Inter world that hadn’t been seen since the Mourinho era. No trifles.
The last two financial statements bear witness to the absolute value of the excellent work done by Zhang Jr., but this is not enough because high finance has very specific rules and when you have obvious financial difficulties behind you, you risk losing everything and ruining the good things you have created.
The world of finance is cynical, crude and doesn’t look at anyone, whether you are Zhang’s son or Mario Rossi from Segrate. This is a world that emulates (with due proportions) those who send absurd tax bills to entrepreneurs in crisis for reasons external to the management of their business, such as closures due to covid-19, to employees with ridiculous salaries or to unemployed people who do not they paid a paltry 30 euro fine on a bus because they didn’t have 5 euros to buy a mortazza sandwich. These are the rules and, however much you may disagree, you must accept them and pay off the debt.
Now, the question that many ask ourselves is the following: will the new owner be able to maintain the project and the backbone of this winning Inter? I, personally, have my doubts, but I hope for the millions of Nerazzurri fans in Italy and around the world that this corporate change does not take the Beneamata back to the times of Kuzmanovic and Nagatomo.