With American investment fund Fortress appearing to have edged closer to an agreement to invest in Inter, Italian media have reported on links between them and rival competitor PIF, as well as current owners Suning.

Mounting debts at the Nerazzurri have seen Suning look to sell the club, although they are believed to prefer to only offload a minority stake, and Fortress had emerged as the frontrunners.

However, as reported in today’s newspaper edition of Corriere dello Sport, the ties between Fortress, Suning and Saudi Arabian private investment firm PIF are interlinked.

Fortress is under the control of Tokyo-based holding conglomerate Softbank, who also have a 25% stake in the Alibaba Group.

In turn, the Alibaba Group control Taobao, who took on shares in Suning Holdings Group in exchange for a €130 million loan last year.

Meanwhile, the governor of PIF, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, is on the board of directors at Softbank, whilst CEO Masayoshi Son was a board member at Alibaba until last June and remains a member of the same advisory committee working with PIF.