Inter CEO Alessandro Antonello replied to Fiorentina President Rocco Commisso’s criticism of their debt status. ‘We always respected the rules.’
The Italian-American patron of the Viola was vociferous in his comments to La Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper over the weekend, when he claimed the current Serie A situation is unfairly skewed away from clubs who try to keep the books balanced.
“These victories arrived thanks to absurd debt situations, which nearly led clubs to bankruptcy and then put them in the hands of funds that had not received money back,” the Fiorentina President insisted.
“I’m still wondering whether some teams that won in the past could even register for the season. I was about to buy Milan, but Mister Li got it, and you know how it finished. How about Zhang? We no longer know where he is. He was also forced to leave Inter due to debts with Oaktree.”
CEO Antonello was asked about the comments today following a Lega Serie A meeting in Milan.
“Inter always respected the rules and always will.”
Trying to fix Inter’s finances
The Nerazzurri passed over to Oaktree in May 2024 after the Zhang family and Suning defaulted on the repayment of a loan, which with interest had reached €395m.
However, although the club itself does have massive debts of around €700m, it has been cutting that down significantly over the past couple of years.
This was thanks to bringing in players as free agents and funding new signings with sales at a profit.
The club was running at a loss of €140m in 2021-22, according to Calcio e Finanza, cutting that to €85m in 2022-23 and €45m in 2023-24.