The financial futures of both Inter and AC Milan are currently very much up in the air, with both teams uncertain of whether or not they’ll be playing in the Champions League next season.
This according to today’s print edition of Turin-based newspaper Tuttosport, via FCInterNews, who highlight what the possibility of missing out on Europe’s top club competition would mean for both of the city rivals ahead of their semifinal tie next month.
As far as what failing to qualify for next season’s Champions League would entail for Inter, the Nerazzurri would almost certainly be forced to sell one of their big name players.
Andre Onana has been linked as the likeliest name who the Nerazzurri would be forced to cash in on if they cannot count on the revenues from the Champions League next campaign.
Meanwhile, for city rivals Milan, the consequences of missing out on Europe’s top club competition might not be quite as drastic as they would be for the Nerazzurri, but the significance should not be downplayed.
Without Champions League football, the Rossoneri would hit a major bump in the road on their long-term financial project.
After reaching a point where financial discipline has allowed Milan to go a couple of seasons without reporting losses, in stark contrast to the debt-ridden manner in which the club had been run for much of last decade, the Rossoneri’s finances would suffer a real blow.
Accordingly, both Inter and Milan will be looking at the current state of the Serie A table with real trepidation, not last because Juventus’s fifteen-point deduction has been suspended putting the Bianconeri up to third as thing stand.
This leaves both Milan teams looking up at Napoli, Lazio, Juventus, and Roma in the table, and hoping that they can claw their way back into a top four spot in the remaining eight matches of the season.
Paradoxically, this comes at a time when the Milan derby will be played in the Champions League semifinal.
Winning the Champions League this season would of course represent a path into next season’s edition of the competition, and a much more realistic one than would’ve seemed the case a couple months ago for either Inter or Milan.
However, even for the winner of next month’s semifinal tie, the chances of beating either Manchester City or Real Madrid in the final are, if not impossible, certainly not the kind of odds that either team would wish to stake their financial future on.