Erick Thohir who is the new owner of Inter talked with Sky about his family and many other subjects.
“My father worked for Astra in 1968 and made it one of the biggest companies in Indonesia. Then in the 80’s he created the Thohir group that started with mining, continued with food sevice and then went on to the car-sector. In 1993 my brother Garibaldi returned from USA and from that year he has been representing the family in the official situations. He is a great brother and I support him a lot. When I graduated I helped my family in the beginning of 2000, then I told my parents I wanted to start doing the business that I like, because I don’t feel any fatigue doing it, with passion you can work many hours and you don’t feel tired. This is why I told my father and my brother that I wanted to invest in the media, they were surprised but supported me. We bought Republika that was dying and in three years we took it back to the top. TV is also a part of the Republika group and that is the reason I invested in TV and Radio as well.”
After that Thohir started to work with sports: “Working with the coach I created a team that now is amongst the best in Indonesian Basketball, Satria Muda. Then I had the chance to buy the 76ers and D.C. United. Now I hope to do great work with Moratti. Passion? Passion guides you but it is not enough, you must always be concentrated on your goal and try to be more creative. Then you have to use your skills to compete, if you don’t do so you’ll lose. Young players? I have always believed in that, because at 31 years of age I was the president of the biggest newspaper in Indonesia. Now I’m 43 years old and becoming older in respect to the local average age. If we invest in young players we could have a great future. Importance of partners? Together with partners you can correct things in a company, you can grow as a person. Lonely you could do mistakes and this is our philosophy, this is why we have many partners in Indonesia and DC United. We could make the company better and richer with the help of many different views.”
About Moratti and the Mercato: “I haven’t talked to Moratti and Mazzarri about the players to buy. With Mazzarri we have only presented ourselves but I really think that the owner and the management need to work together. But we haven’t met yet to discuss the plan for the coming three or five years. When we meet the results will be the best ones, this is why I can tell you that many of the rumours aren’t true. From my point I view I like Inter a lot and they entertain me. What Mazzarri is doing is excellent and what Moratti is doing is excellent. I have my opinions in a positive way, and that’s why I say that we need players for the wings because we have Jonathan, Nagatomo and maybe Pereira. What if someone was injured, this is why we will sit down and find an agreement. Majority or minority doesn’t matter, we will find a plan for winning in the coming three or five years.”
But does Thohir want a team to win together or a team with stars?
“There is always a way in between buying and investing. I think the academy needs to be strong to form young players. The team needs to have a good balance which means when you buy players from other teams they have to be adapted to the team. I believe in this model but I have to speak about it to Moratti, Mazzarri and members from the academy. I think that this is the model that can work for Inter in the future. In difference to other supporters I don’t know Inters story, but I’ve been following the team for many years. I don’t know Inter deeply, but I know a big part of the players and for this I’ll say it’s easy to mention the Germans, Baggio, Ronaldo. And I also remember players that were good at Inter, but who had injuries like Ventola, Fresi and Obafemi Martins who is in Seattle now. It was during a time when Inter had many strikers and he was the second or third choice not only because of him. I respect all the players of Inter and it doesn’t matter what they have done. It’s enough with scoring one goal for helping Inter. We don’t need eleven stars, we need players together with the stars.”
