By Mark Baber
May 27 – Pirelli president Marco Tronchetti Provera has delivered a warning to Inter Milan, saying that his company’s sponsorship of the team, which expires in 2016, doesn’t make sense without winning cups and without European football.
Pirelli have sponsored Inter Milan since 1995 and have a small stake in the club, but speaking on GR Parlamento radio, Marco Tronchetti Provera did not mince his words saying, “Without cups it does not make sense for Pirelli to continue the sponsorship.”
With the sponsorship agreement due for renegotiation soon Provera insisted “Pirelli-Inter? Football is a vehicle of great importance worldwide. If Inter are relegated to national football it makes no sense for Pirelli to continue. “
The Pirelli contract is worth a reported €14 million per annum and, with the club languishing in 8th place in the Serie A table and dependent on results elsewhere for even a mathematical chance of getting into Europe, the loss of that income and the blow to the club’s prestige it would represent would be very unwelcome for the Milan club.
To make the Europa League qualifiers, Inter must beat Empoli in their final game of the season, hope Sampdoria lose to lowly Parma and trust that Genoa fail in their appeal against being refused a license to play in Europe.
It was not all doom and gloom from Tronchetti Provera though, as he responded to the rumours of a Mario Balotelli return saying “He’s a top player, but a complex lad. We would need to see whether the coach is capable of getting him to express the quality that he has. They need more leaders on the field, and they need to change the team’s mentality. We have a great coach. It’s not going to be easy to bridge the gap, but decisions need to be taken which will see the club return to where they were.
“We’re used to ups and downs, but this latest down is lasting too long.”