For the moment, Inter’s contract talks with key players including Hakan Calhanoglu and defender Alessandro Bastoni are frozen due to uncertainty over whether or not the team will qualify for the Champions League next season.

This according to today’s print edition of Milan-based newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport, via FCInterNews, who report that the Nerazzurri must wait until there is clarity regarding their participation in Europe’s biggest and richest club competition before they can move forward.

Whilst Milan Skriniar has confirmed that he will leave when his contract expires at the end of June, and Matteo Darmian has already penned a new deal, there are any number of contract situations that Inter have been very actively working on.

As far as players currently in the final few months of their deals, the likes of Stefan de Vrij and Edin Dzeko have both already been offered new deals past the end of June and have looked likely to commit their futures.

Meanwhile, midfielder Calhanoglu has appeared to be poised to extend his deal which expires past the end of June 2024.

Another player whose current contract runs out at the end of next season is Bastoni, and the Nerazzurri could even sell the 23-year-old defender in the summer if he doesn’t sign a new deal, in order to ensure he is not lost on a free transfer in twelve months’ time.

Bastoni’s agent has confirmed that he wants to stay, but a host of clubs remain lurking in the background with Manchester City leading the way.

In any event, Inter have been working on all of these situations in negotiations over the past few months, but right now it would be hard for them to move forward.

Whereas it had looked fairly certain that the Nerazzurri would secure a spot in the top spot of the Serie A table when all these talks began, now it is far from obvious.

Missing out on Europe’s top club competition would be a financial disaster for Inter, and it would be unclear where they would go from there.

However, what is clear is that right now the club’s focus is on the pitch and making sure that they bounce back from three consecutive Serie A defeats, which would make things much easier to move forward in all contract talks.