Football news at this time of year is pretty frustrating. There are a lot of people who love this time of year because there is all the speculation and everyone has a team that “on paper” could be better than they were last season.

For me this time of year isn’t so great because I’m not a big money guy. Lots of money getting thrown around by people who generally don’t know what they are doing doesn’t really impress me. The “newspapers” generally lying their teeth off doesn’t do a whole lot for my attention. One of the reasons I rarely do transfer rumors here because most of the rumors begin with the words, “Okay, we have xxx amount of inches to fill today what if player A goes to Team B, wouldn’t that be something that someone might want to read…?”

And then there is the continuing Inter saga regarding the investment that was a takeover bid that is now an investment that is now a partnership that is now nothing that we need to be concerned with, apparently, because it’s none of our business.

That is what this thing looks like if you have been following it.

For weeks the papers have been going on about this Thohir fellow and all the negotiations. First it was €10s of millions for 30% that Moratti wants for a minority partner that no same man would accept, especially with a team that has been as poorly financially managed as Inter. Don’t get me wrong, it’s gotten a lot better, but as long as a guy like Deki is counting around €10 million against this team’s red ink, then this thing needs to be managed better. The team is losing money. No one at the club seems to understand that when that happens, redundancies need to be cut loose. Deki is a redundancy at this point. He’s certainly not an asset on the field!

Then the news was that Thohir wants to buy everything. Okay, that makes more sense from an investment point of view. Inter can certainly be managed better on the field and the potential for a media guy with huge ties to an incredibly growing Asian market certainly can see a way for this club to be exploited further. At this stage in the saga Moratti is off to England – officially for a family affair – but really to consider the temptation of selling the team like his father did, only for a much better deal.

Moratti has this weekend come out publically and stated that 90% of what’s written is false. Okay. That doesn’t surprise me too much with Italy’s press. But if every single article written about this thing is false, then what’s the truth? Well, he won’t say, but he’s not going to sell. He’s looking for a deal that benefits Inter. Okay. What benefits are we talking about? Someone asked him if it was about a stadium. He replied only that a stadium was important.

So we are back to the point where there is a deal being negotiated. We don’t know for what, although to my mind if the word stadium isn’t used 30x per day then they may as well be wasting everyone’s time. This team needs its own stadium. And it was needed yesterday. That’s the only negotiation that I want to know about. I don’t care about shares. I don’t care about money for transfers. All that is a band-aid on an arterial wound. Not good enough. Plus, a waste of the band-aid. Keep the exact same team – minus Deki, please – but tell me that the deal is done for a stadium and I will be happy. The Curve might not like it, but it’s the only move for this team left.

I read today that somebody decided that the investment isn’t crucial. That this deal is something that Moratti can kill anytime he wants to and that the team will be fine.

They are wrong. This club needs the money. This team needs the investment for that stadium. This team needs the exposure and the sponsorship into Asia and from Asian businesses. A stadium will need dozens and dozens of ads. It will need to have a name that will sell for €10s of millions every year. It will need to be a spectacle that will draw people into the restaurants and shops that it will house – paying rent to the club creating income even when there isn’t a game that day. It will need to have billboards in the parking lot that businesses will pay for as people walk from their cars to the gate. The outer wall of the stadium will need sponsorship.

There are uncountable revenue streams that open up with a stadium, especially one that would be so easy to get to from the entire country as this one would be – right off the main rail line that goes up and down the boot if they decide on the correct location for it. The numbers could be staggering, really.

So yes, this deal needs to happen. It is essential. It’s certainly essential to us supporters of this team. And considering all the time and effort we fans put into following this team, I don’t think it’s out of line for Moratti to keep us up to date on what the hell is going on. Do I need every single detail right down to the numbers? No. But would it be nice to know if he’s selling the team sooner than 2 weeks into the negotiations that we all knew were happening? Yeah, that would have been nice. Would it have been helpful to know what the broad strokes of the deal is about? Yeah, it would be a nice way to throw the supporters a bone and generate good will. I for one would like to now whether I should expect my team to make a trip to below Lega Pro because of bankruptcy. I mean, despite what the team wants to believe about us, we aren’t stupid. We see the numbers of the financial statements. We know that the team loses money… shouldn’t we be concerned already about the stability of the team considering how long and how badly it goes into the red every year, every year, every year? Considering how long it takes this team to make a decision on when to push the high earning low quality older players out? Considering the quality of the decisions for those players coming in?

Don’t we have a right to be concerned? Don’t we deserve to know what’s going on considering all the garbage that we’ve been put through these last few years?

FORZA INTER