Beppe Marotta admits he feels very satisfied to have ended Juventus’ dominance in Serie A and has already laid down the gauntlet for next season.
Inter were confirmed as champions yesterday for the 19th time in their history, after Atalanta were held to a 1-1 draw away at Sassuolo.
The Nerazzurri have ended an 11-year wait for the scudetto while also dethroning Juventus after they had won nine straight titles.
“There’s no revenge here, there’s always been the right sense of competition between us and Juventus,” Inter’s chief executive Marotta told Radio Sportiva today.
“It’s satisfying to end Juventus’ dominance in Serie A; we have good relations but when you take to the pitch it’s right that you try to win.
“We know they are a strong opponent and we have other rivals too, so it’s down to us to make ourselves a threat.
“Our dream has become reality this year and I’m extremely happy.”
Inter need one more scudetto to secure a second star on their shirt (to mark 20 league titles) and Marotta made no secret of how much that would mean to him and the club.
“Our dream is to win the 20th scudetto and get the star,” he admitted.
“It would be nice to enjoy getting that star on the Inter shirt.”
Marotta also spoke again on his relationship with Antonio Conte, whom he helped appoint as head coach back in the summer of 2019.
“Conte is a proven winner with great values and he’s managed to transfer those values to his players,” Marotta explained.
“I’ve always got on well with Conte since we were at Juventus; those who know him know that when he’s made strong comments in public, it was to stimulate us.
“He’s a winner who wants to make progress very quickly, and so he wants the corporate side of the club to be like this too.
“I’ve never seen a winner who doesn’t have a difficult character.”
Marotta was then asked about Inter potentially having to sell key players in the summer, with the club known to be battling fierce economic problems.
“I can’t comment on this at the moment, the owners will give us the directives,” he said.
“What I can say is that Inter are aiming to cut costs like every other club.
“We’ll need a meeting with Steven Zhang and Conte to give us a vision; the owners have made lots of investments but we’ll need to talk.
“There are reasons to be positive, Conte has improved the team and the club has a good relationship with him.
“Inter is a prestigious club which has nothing to envy from any club in the world, but the owners make the rules and we’ll abide by those.”
On Inter’s upcoming Serie A title celebrations, Marotta admitted: “We can’t do anything too fanciful with the current COVID-19 restrictions.
“People already went a bit over the top yesterday, despite our appeals on social media, but it’s difficult to halt that kind of enthusiasm.
“I’m disappointed we can’t have fans in the stadium for the last game when we receive the trophy, that’s very sad.
“We’ll have a little party with the team but there’s nothing particular organised.”
