In an interview with Italian news outler VareseNews.it, Inter chief executive Giuseppe ‘Beppe’ Marotta has discussed the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic among a number of other topics.
Clubs not just in Italy but worldwide have been impacted negatively by the pandemic with many clubs making significant financial losses, including Inter. Clubs have also had to follow strict protocols and deal with players contracting the virus too.
“This virus had a violent impact, in the first place for health, creating a state of alarm in each team. We face the feeling of fear, approaching the subject with ‘ignorance’, in the sense that we didn’t know what we were up against,” he explained.
“Within the club, the priority was to secure the employees and players, adopting the protocol that gave guarantees.
“We too have exploited smart working, opening up a new world such as video conferences. The other goal was to guarantee sustainability in the world of football.
“My idea was to be patient, take a detailed picture of the situation and then resume the activity. The players tried to protect their families.”
The former Juventus executive, who has held his current role at Inter since 2018, then went on to discuss the protocol in place and how it makes it difficult for the coaches to plan for matches.
“Today, we are undergoing a conditioning. We are going from one buffer to another where you can find a group of players available or not.
“The great difficulty of the coaches is managing the planning of the matches. From a sporting point of view, we are in great difficulty.
Marotta then went on to call for Serie A to become centralised with him adding: “For this reason, I think that Serie A must be centralised, in order to not create different situations between the teams.”
Marotta also went on to clarify his recent comments with regard to players going on national team duty and shared his belief that a limit should be placed on games with little to no value in order to protect the health of the players.
“My last comments regarding this break for the national teams, was not to deprive the player selections, but to evaluate the situation within an anomalous season, in a very compressed calendar.
“It’s necessary to evaluate better the situations of individual athletes with a fruitful conversation between clubs and national teams, but also reduce the tournaments that have no relevance.
He concluded: “I understand the importance of the European Championship and the World Cup, but we should try to limit some games that have little value.”
