Chapter 695 It’s a Good Deal

"call!"

Fabio Licari sat at his desk in the editorial office of Gazzetta dello Sport and exhaled forcefully the anger in his heart.

He has just finished another front-page news for tomorrow's Gazzetta dello Sport, the headline is that Inter Milan will sign Real Madrid's midfielder, Khedira!

This is the exact news he just received from his Spanish counterparts. It is said that Inter Milan's technical director Marco Branca personally negotiated the contract and signed it. This transfer will be announced within a week!

Let’s count, this is Inter Milan’s nth transfer in the past month?

From Damian to Nainggolan, to Allan and Widmer, to Rugani, Dybala, Romagnoli and other players, there are both stars in their prime and talented young rookies, and the players' ages are generally under 25 years old. Such a signing strategy is undoubtedly quite shrewd.

More importantly, Inter Milan's transfers are obviously completely different from before.

Just like before, the Nerazzurri raised a sum of money with great difficulty and wanted to introduce a midfielder in the transfer market. They also set their eyes on a player from Brazil. The other club was also willing to sell the player, and the player was eager to join a European team as soon as possible. Normally, such a transfer should be a deal that the three parties hit it off and quickly agreed upon.

But what is the result?

Half a year later, the other club criticized Inter Milan's negotiating attitude, and even the players said that Inter Milan lacked sincerity and refused to continue negotiations. The transfer was eventually aborted, and the midfielder immediately performed well after switching to another team.

At that time, many people said that Inter Milan had declined to the point where they didn’t even know how to spend money!

Such statements are purely for fun. It is impossible that the Nerazzurri do not know how to spend money. It can only be said that they do not know how to maximize the benefits of the funds in their hands like the shrewd bald boss Galliani of AC Milan.

It is this mentality of being poor on the one hand, but being hesitant and thinking about how to spend less money when they have money on the other hand, that has ultimately led to Inter Milan becoming a well-known loser team in the Serie A in the past few years.

Everyone in the football circle is laughing. Inter Milan has only one requirement when buying players: cheap!

Look at the players in the team, how many of them can play as starters in an upper-middle level Serie A team?

But what no one expected was that Inter Milan’s style had completely changed just after changing the boss!

After the previous acquisition, the team's record was not good and the fans immediately protested. Inter Milan felt like it was on the verge of collapse. But now, after defeating Udinese, the team has won two consecutive games and performed well.

More importantly, the Nerazzurri changed their past hesitant style and signed more than a dozen powerful stars in one go at lightning speed. Among them, De Bruyne was introduced from Chelsea at a high price of 15 million euros, which made Inter Milan fans most excited.

During an interview, Mazzarri even stated loudly that De Bruyne is extremely talented and has the opportunity to become a world-class star.

And now, midfielder Khedira has been introduced!

A full 20 million euros, and it was done without a single word!

No wonder a large number of Inter Milan fans left messages on the official WeChat account, saying that they woke up laughing in the middle of the night!

Who is this Chinese investor?

Fabio Licari thought depressedly, he had not forgotten the scene where he was fooled two months ago.

Normally, if an outside investor acquires a team, there should be an adaptation period.

For example, they should first familiarize themselves with Inter Milan's internal affairs and understand the situation of the Nerazzurri, such as the team lineup, the head coach, personnel arrangements, etc.

But this investor seemed to have no need for such a process at all. He seemed to be quite familiar with and knowledgeable about professional football. After taking over Inter Milan, he immediately promoted the reform of the power structure of Inter Milan's management, supported the three powerful bosses, Fassone, Branca and Ausilio, and established a balance of power.

At the same time, more than a dozen players were signed in one go, many of whom are still very unfamiliar. If Inter Milan had not introduced them, they might not be able to pronounce their names. But once they got to know them, they found that the reviews were quite good.

For example, who has heard of De Vrij from Feyenoord in the Dutch Eredivisie before?

But when Fabio Licari went to talk to his Dutch counterparts, he found out that they had a very high opinion of De Vrij, even giving him the title of Stam II.

Who is Stam?

Who in the whole city of Milan wouldn’t give a thumbs up when hearing this name?

The central defender combination of Stam and Nesta was the best in Europe at that time, and their strength was outrageous.

Can this De Vrij have the ability of Stam?

No, he doesn't need to have Stam's strength. With his worth of only 6 million euros, he only needs to play half of Stam's strength, which would be quite a bargain!

Therefore, Fabio Licari can almost conclude that the Chinese investors are either very familiar with and understand football, or there is someone in his team who has been immersed in European football for many years.

So who is it?

Of course Fabio Licari would not believe that it was the man named Zhao who held the title of club chairman.

Thinking of this, Fabio Licari immediately took out his mobile phone, entered the address book, found a name, and clicked on it.

After two beeps, the other party picked up the phone. He seemed to be in a hurry and was out of breath.

"Hello, Paolo, it's me, Fabio!"

Fabio Licari greeted Paolo Vigano on the other end of the phone with a smile.

"Hi Fabio, thank you for giving Inter Milan the front page for the past two weeks!"

Isn’t Paolo Vigano on the other end of the phone the head of Inter Milan’s public relations department?

"Hey, Paul, don't be so polite. You guys have been making quite a fuss recently. If there is any breaking news, please let me know immediately!"

Paul Vigano immediately nodded and agreed, "If you don't tell me, I won't remember it. Will you arrange news about Khedira tomorrow?"

"Yes, I have already written the manuscript and it will be sent to the printer in a few hours!"

"That's good, but I think you should consider adding something else?"

"What do you mean?" Fabio Licari was a little surprised.

"To be honest, we gave the news about Khedira to three newspapers with whom we have good relations, but I will give you an exclusive next time."

"Exclusive?" Fabio Licari's eyes suddenly lit up.

"Yes!" Paul Vigano nodded. "I'm busy attending a meeting now, so I can't go into details. I'll have my assistant send you a press release later. In addition to bringing in Khedira from Real Madrid, we also brought in Morata!"

"Morata?" Fabio Licari was shocked.

"Haha, isn't it scary? Let me tell you, Marco has confirmed in Spain that he will come to the team for training in the next few days. I will arrange for you to come and take some training photos. Believe me, there will definitely be surprises!"

Fabio Licari was almost stunned.

Bro, can you tell me all the explosive news in one go?

It's really uncomfortable for us to hold back when you guys keep releasing your information one by one, okay?

However, if it is announced all at once, I don’t know if the hearts of those old fans in Milan can bear it. If they are not careful...

"By the way, Paul, I have something you must tell me!" Fabio Licari immediately thought of the purpose of his call.

Morata's joining is indeed very exciting. This Spanish center forward is very popular now, but compared with Inter Milan's behind-the-scenes boss, Morata is far inferior, right?

"Speak!"

"Who is your boss?" Fabio Licari asked solemnly.

There was noticeable silence on the other end of the line.

"Hey, man, I'm just curious, really. I promise, I won't publish it in the newspaper. We've been friends for so many years, you should trust me, or..."

"I'm sorry, Fabio. I believe you, but frankly speaking, there are many things I don't know and I can't tell you. The higher-ups are now very strict with every department, and I can't disclose company secrets."

Fabio Licari was helpless and sighed, "Okay, man, I won't force you, but I didn't expect that you are still working overtime now?"

"Yes, the club has acquired the land for the new stadium. There are many things to do. In addition, the team plans to participate in the International Champions Cup next year and also needs to draw up a business development plan. In addition, there are a lot of other things to do. In short... you get the idea!"

"I understand, I understand!"

At this moment, Fabio Licari vaguely heard someone on the other end of the phone calling Paolo Vigano's name, and the latter immediately responded.

"Sorry, Fabio, I have to go to a meeting, bye!"

Hearing the busy tone coming from the phone, Fabio Licari felt helpless and could only lower his head.

On the other side of the phone, after Paul Vigano hung up, he immediately opened the door of the conference room and walked in.

"Excuse me, Mr. Fassone!" Paolo Vigano apologized to the club's CEO Marco Fassone who was sitting at the front. The latter nodded at him and motioned for him to sit down quickly.

After everyone was seated, Fassone turned on the projector, displayed the PPT he had made, and started the meeting.

The content of the meeting was not surprising and was closely related to the club's reforms in recent times.

As we all know, there are only two ways for Inter Milan to get out of its current predicament: increasing revenue and reducing expenditure, and it is best to do both at the same time.

According to Fassone's idea, the management was reformed, some departments were cut and integrated, and redundant staff in the club were cleared out, especially some employees who relied on the relationship with the Moratti family and received free salaries at Inter Milan. The team's management team was refined a lot.

After the end of this season, the team will not renew the contracts of most players whose contracts have expired.

If they consider selling or simply allowing them to transfer freely, after sending away a group of players, even if they introduce a dozen more players, Inter Milan's overall salary burden will still drop by about 25 million euros.

That is about 50 million euros before tax!

In other words, after the team replaced a group of players, it became stronger and the team saved 50 million euros in expenses.

Of course, the main reason is that the high salaries of players including Zanetti, Cambiasso, Diego Milito, Samuel and Chivu were cut. Among them, Diego Milito's salary was as high as 4.5 million euros after tax, and Cambiasso's salary was as high as 4 million euros after tax. Players such as Zanetti, Samuel, Perreira, Guarin and Chivu also had an annual salary of more than 2 million euros after tax.

Among the new players, except for Khedira who has a higher salary of 3 million euros after tax, which is slightly higher than when he was in Real Madrid, De Bruyne's salary is only 2.5 million euros after tax.

Therefore, as a result of this trade-off, Inter Milan will save about 50 million euros a year in salary expenses!

When Fassone said this, his heart was filled with excitement and he could hardly believe the number.

Because if this is true, then Master Huan's net investment is only 10 or 20 million euros, but the result is that Inter Milan's entire lineup configuration is completely new.

Of course, with such a large-scale reorganization, there are huge risks in terms of adjustment. No team would do this easily, and you would need 130 million euros in funds to operate it.

But no matter from which angle you look at it, it’s really a good deal!