REPORT: Is Erick Thohir thinking of selling Inter?
Inter owner Erick Thohir is reported to be considering selling the club, according to the ANSA press agency.
With an outstanding debt of €230 million to Goldman Sachs and with the club expected to post losses superior to the €30 million Thohir had agreed to with UEFA to avoid falling foul of FFP regulations, things are turning out to be tougher than expected for the Indonesian magnate.
Thohir bought Inter in 2013 from Massimo Moratti, but has found it difficult to turn things around since he arrived, despite spending a healthy chunk on players (like the €35 million Geoffrey Kondogbia) during the summer.
The Indonesian businessman has also met with more obstacles than anticipated in rebooting Inter's plans to buy and/or develop their own stadium (they need AC Milan to come in with them to revamp the San Siro, which looks set to cost €100 million off the bat), as well as find more fruitful sponsorship deals, which would explain why the Nerazzurri recently renewed their deal with long-term partner Pirelli... at exactly the same conditions.
Thohir is now hoping to bring new investors to the club, but this will not be enough to satisfy UEFA that Inter are respecting Financial Fair Play regulations, even if the team were to qualify for next year's Champions League.
The Nerazzurri owner's hope is that he can sit down with UEFA again, and hope to spread out the club's debts over a number of years, in order to relaunch the club without incurring huge losses.
So far, however, the signs are not good: having brought in a number of "English" minds (like Michael Bolingbroke) to modernise the Italian game, he has instead encountered resistence from a backward-thinking system, still set in its ways.
Any improvement of Inter's fortunes would inevitably go hand-in-hand with a modernisation of Serie A. So far, Inter have been unable to get much traction.
