What Could Inter Milan Face After Breaching Financial Fair Play Rules?

Italian clubs have been a subject of big sports scandals for quite some time however, Inter Milan's alleged malice could be as big as the Calciopoli scandal. The club itself is performing great, winning the Serie A in recent years and making it to two UCL finals in the past three years. The 2024-2025 season has been a letdown since they competed well for the Serie A and UCL just to lose the former to Napoli and the latter to PSG 5-0.

To make things worse, their coach, Simone Inzaghi, has now joined Saudi Pro League club Al-Hilal. However, this is the least of their concerns since news has broken about a disastrous Inter Milan financial scandal involving financial fair play rules, which, if proven, will lead them to face a lot of heavy sanctions.

How Did Inter Milan Break Financial Fair Play Rules Allegedly?

A new report from Europe states that Inter Milan has financial reports which imply that the club received €300m from made-up and fake Asian sponsors over a four-year period from 2016-2019, so as to bypass UEFA's financial fair play rules. What makes matters even worse is that the report states the involvement of the Italian football federation.

The Italian football federation has reportedly helped Inter avoid sanctions that any club would usually face upon violation of UEFA's FFP rules. The report states that the Italian football federation helped the club due to the fact that the club's ultras fanbase has a lot of mafia connections.

The Chinese group Suning, which took over Inter Milan in 2016, has generated €300m in revenue over the last four years, which is 27 % of their total revenue over this period. The club's expenses increased as well, with player and staff costs rising from €124 million in 2016 to €192 million in 2019, and other operating expenses from €211 million to over €310 million over the same period.

What Could Inter Milan Face After Breaching FFP Rules?

The nature of the rapid rise raised some questions since the revenue from these contracts is temporary and difficult to trace. Such revenue is usually brought to be used as leverage to artificially strengthen the club's accounts and comply with UEFA's FFP rules. The report suggests that without this money, Inter Milan would have been forced into liquidation. If these allegations are proven to be true, Inter Milan might be relegated to Serie B or an even harsher punishment.