Tomás Frutos and Guillermo Benavides
Beijing/Rome (EFE).- Inter dreams of the ‘Champions’. Also Steven Zhang, the youngest president in the history of Inter, who attracted all eyes at San Siro. He arrived in Italy through the technological giant Suning, which since 2016 has had majority shareholding control of the ‘Nerazzurri’ team. The Chinese made the club grow by 41% percent after his arrival. He expands the borders of soccer. Now it is rumored with a possible sale.
Watching the first leg of the Champions League semifinal at the San Siro between Milan and Inter (0-2), many people wondered: who is the young Chinese man the camera constantly focuses on? Well, the answer is that, despite his youth, he is the president of an Inter that has a whole Champions League final 90 minutes away.
The ‘Nerazzurri’ team was the last Italian team to be in a final of the highest European club competition and to win it. It was in 2010, led by José Mourinho on the bench. Back then, the Italian Massimo Moratti was the president. Zhang is close to matching the feat with a team that has been relegated to the second row thirteen years in a row.
Before his arrival, the Indonesian Erick Thohir took over the reins of a club in 2013, of which he still owns 30% of the shares. He was president for five years and did not get any title.
Since 2016, Inter has been owned by Chinese business group Suning, owned by Zhang’s father Jindong. And since 2018, when he arrived at just 26 years old, Steven Zhang has been the president. His objective goes beyond economics, he wants sporting success. He already has four titles and dreams of the ‘Champions’.
What is behind Inter? What is Suning?
Suning was born in 1996, in China, as a company specializing in home appliances. Growth was exponential in its first years of life, so it decided to broaden its range of action and began to work with electronic software services until it became a technological giant.
In 2016, in one of its best economic moments, the technology company embarked on a new project. A Chinese management fully opened the club’s brand to the Asian market.
Jindong Zhang paid 270 million euros for 68.55% of Inter’s shares. Since his arrival, Suning has invested close to 800 million euros in the project, according to reports from the specialized media ‘Calcio e Finanza’.
The goal was clear: return Inter to the top.
Zhang, a lover of football and Messi
Steven Zhang was chosen to lead the team from Milan. Born on December 21, 1991 in Nanjing (eastern Jiangsu province, China), he took office as president in 2018 at just 26 years of age.
The decision to put him in command was not solely because of his facet as a businessman. And it is that since he was little, Zhang showed interest in the king of sports and became an admirer of Leo Messi, whom he considers his idol. His dream was to play soccer professionally, but his father encouraged him to study economics and finance to follow his business steps.
Trained in economics at the prestigious University of Pennsylvania and with experience as an analyst at Morgan Stanley, he joined the family business in 2014 and was in charge of leading Suning’s international expansion.
His work paid off in the 2020/21 season, in which Inter won their 19th ‘Scudetto’, ending the hegemony of Juventus, who had won the previous nine championships in a row.
In addition, Zhang is currently a member of ECA, the European Club Association. He is the first board member of Chinese nationality.
Rumors of a possible sale
However, Steven Zhang has also had to face some challenges and difficulties. The coronavirus pandemic has seriously affected the finances of the club and the Suning group, which has had to seek partners to guarantee the sustainability of the project.
So much so that, from Italy, there are various media outlets that suggest that the young man is considering a sale, although it is not his main desire, to the Bahraini fund Investcorp, which recently wanted to take over Milan. The Chinese value the club at more than 1,000 million.
But everything changes with the ‘Champions’. Raising the ‘orejona’ would mean an economic boost that would also revalue the club. Getting the fourth in the ‘Nerazzurri’ list of winners would completely change the paradigm, since it would place Inter in a position of power.
If he achieves his goal, to return Inter to the top, the option of looking for a new partner would gain strength, definitively setting aside the total sale. Zhang, the young man who has been partly to blame for Inter’s revival, dreams of the ‘Champions’ to go down in history in Milan, his second home.