Inter Milan Corporate CEO Alessandro Antonello believes that success the club have enjoyed under Suning is no accident.
Speaking at the Social Football Summit 2023 in Rome, via FCInterNews, the Nerazzurri executive credited the current owners of the club for the vision that has allowed them to thrive both on and off the pitch.
Suning’s years in charge of Inter certainly have not been boring.
The club has won trophies under the current owners. These have included the Serie A title, and each of the Coppa Italia and the Supercoppa Italiana twice.
Meanwhile, Inter have reached the Champions League final. This came after doing the same in the Europa League a few seasons ago.
The team have managed to get to the round of sixteen in Europe’s top club competition in each of the past three campaigns.
And in Serie A, Inter have cemented their place in the top four of the table.
On the other hand, there have been major financial issues for Inter to contend with.
The financial issues of the parent company of Suning after the start of the pandemic have been a key part of the reason why.
This has led to many feeling that the current owners should go. There have been those who argue that running Inter is not financially sustainable for Suning.
But the current owners have remained.
And as Antonello is keen to stress, the owners have guided the club to success, both on and off the pitch, in spite of any financial obstacles.
Inter Corporate CEO Alessandro Antonello Praises Ownership Of Suning
From the perspective of Inter CEO Antonello, the most important thing is that Inter have been run in a financially sustainable manner.
“It’s a term that seems obvious,” the executive said of sustainability. “But it’s certainly risen to prominence during the pandemic.”
He noted that “European football has suffered €7 billion in losses. In Italian football there have been €1 billion in losses.”
“At this point, UEFA intervened with new rules,” he noted. “They’ve launched Financial Sustainability Regulations.”
“More stringent rules on the one hand, but which have allowed the clubs most damaged by the pandemic to gradually recover.”
Antonello observed that “Solvency must be one of the cornerstones of the system.”
“Otherwise it risks imploding.”
“Previously we were focused on growing revenue,” Antonello continued.
“But now cost management is fundamental.”
“All these rules serve to guarantee the balance of football,” the Nerazzurri executive argued.
“As a club, from a strategic point of view we’ve wanted to align the two dimensions of competitiveness and financial sustainability, which often haven’t been aligned.”
“But we’ve put an enormous amount of effort into pursuing this,” he noted. “We’ve been on this path for several years.”
“The success of the club hasn’t been an accident,” Antonello argued. “It has followed from the acquisition of the club by Suning.”
“Our mission was to bring back successes in the sporting area with gradual investment in the squad to be competitive,” he noted.
“But also work externally, off the pitch. We’ve pursued a strategy aimed at broadening our fanbase.”
