Thohir-Mancini

Inter President Erick Thohir spoke exclusively to Inter Channel regarding the past few turbulent days at Inter where Roberto Mancini has been rumored to resign as well as captain Mauro Icardi being on his way to Napoli.

Thohir gave the interview from New Jersey where Inter are preparing for the second part of their USA tour. “It’s good to be here today for our manager meeting, which has become a regular fixture at the start of every season – first in Washington, then last year in China and now here in New York. These meetings offer an important opportunity for us to get together and decide on our direction and our aims as management for the coming season. This year we have a new majority partner and it’s good that they’re here so that we can understand how they plan to work with us in China, where we want to open a new office and develop our facilities and Inter Academy centres. Asia is a huge market and that’s where we’ll be looking to grow over the next five years.”

“Icardi? We’re not going to sell Icardi. We’ve received offers from Napoli amongst others but we’re not going to sell him. We extended his contract a year ago. We’re like a family and we can always talk if there are problems or discuss what we’d like to achieve together in future. He’s our captain and an important player for us. We’re very happy with him. Roberto Mancini is our coach. Here in the States he’s working on the pitch with the team and off it with the management. I believe very much in his work. We’re all working together and over the next two days we’ll meet again to help each other. I have great belief in our management structure. We work together as one, not individually.”

“New York is beautiful but we’re not here on holiday. Today we spoke with the management and with Suning about how to strengthen the team. We’ve sold a few players and we’ve made some very good signings to complete our 21-man Europa League squad but we’re not going to stop there. Suning and the management team want to strengthen the squad further so that we can compete in Serie A and reach our targets – one of which is to get back in the Champions League” Thohir concluded.