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Nicolo Barella

HaydnNUFC

by HaydnNUFC
in Football

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Wilson

Wilson

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42 minutes ago, Rich said:

That feeling of logging into the forum and seeing a new thread about a mint player that’s already at multiple pages is hard to beat, mind.

 

Still trying to get through the pages without biting (too much) at stifler doom mongering shite. 

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Kanj

Kanj

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I really don't think he's a 6, in terms of his best position. I know Bruno says he wants to play further up, but Bruno is most definitely a 6 for us but has the ability to play the 8 and further forward. Bruno simply doesn't have the shooting that Barella has. 

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timeEd32

timeEd32

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Good piece in the New York Times prior to the CL Final about Inter's finances: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/08/sports/soccer/champions-league-final-inter-milan.html#:~:text=Inter has been caught in,most notably%2C Suning's own troubles.

 

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Nor is it simply that, for as much as half of the team, this may be the final hurrah in an Inter jersey: Skriniar is one of 11 players whose contracts will expire, or whose loan spells will end, at the close of the current season. That reality has left the club facing the prospect of having to restock its squad almost from scratch.


Inter, though, has far graver concerns about its future. In 2016, Suning, the Chinese retail conglomerate, paid $307 million to take a 70 percent stake in Inter, a deal that was — at the time — seen as the spearhead of China’s sudden, lavish and state-approved investment in European soccer. The new ownership would, in theory, finance Inter’s return to the game’s head table. The team’s training facility would be upgraded. So, too, would the club’s offices. And, of course, the players would follow.

Suning’s ownership has not, on the field, been disastrous. In 2021, Inter won its first Italian title in more than a decade. Inzaghi has subsequently added the Coppa Italia, both this season and last, to the club’s honors. Inter has become something of a mainstay of the Champions League; it made the round of 16 last year, and has reached the final this time.
 

That relative return to success, though, has come at a cost. Inter is the most indebted club in Italy; according to its most recently published accounts, its total liabilities run at around $931 million. In the last two years for which information is available, it recorded losses of almost $430 million, leading to punishment from European soccer’s governing body. It fined the club 4 millions euros (about $4.3 million) for breaching fiscal controls last year, and it has threatened a bigger penalty (26 million euros, or roughly $28 million) if it does not get its finances in order.
 

Inter has been caught in a sort of rolling financial crisis for several years, thanks to the combined impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the dwindling support of the Chinese state for investing in European soccer and, most notably, Suning’s own troubles.
 

In 2021, the conglomerate had to accept a $1.36 billion bailout, financed in part by local government, in the face of its spiraling debts. The same year, it permanently closed its Chinese team, Jiangsu Suning, months after it secured the title, citing the need to focus exclusively on its core retail business. Last year, Steven Zhang, the 32-year-old son of Suning’s founder who serves as Inter’s president, was held liable for $255 million of debt and defaulted bonds in a Hong Kong court.

...

To save its investment, Suning secured a $294 million loan from Oaktree Capital, a California-based asset management firm, to help with the club’s running costs.

...
 

The loan to Oaktree is due next May. With interest, the total sum to be repaid stands at around $375 million. The revenue from Inter’s unexpected run in the Champions League will certainly help with that, but so, too, would acquiescing to another fire sale of talent.
 

If the club cannot meet its obligations, Suning will automatically cede control of the club to its creditor. “Paying a debt at the level of interest that the club is paying Oaktree is not sustainable,” Ernesto Paolillo, the club’s former general manager, said last month. “Steven Zhang won’t be able to export capital from China and nor will he be able to cover the debt with other resources. He will have no choice but to default on the agreement and sell the club to them.”

 

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