Inter Milan Owner Erick Thohir wants the club "to be more like a media business," according to Ben Bland of the FINANCIAL TIMES. He "is a man on a mission to turn one of Italy’s top football clubs from fading icon into a thriving multinational business." Of the decline of Italian football on the pitch and in financial terms, Thohir said, "It happens in many companies. When you’re on top, you’re comfortable, you get fat and lazy and then suddenly there’s another company and it’s working hard and fighting to compete. In our case it was the English Premier League and Germany’s Bundesliga." A sports fan, Thohir "dabbled in basketball, helping to run the sport’s Indonesian association and setting up a Southeast Asian league." But he viewed his support for sport as "corporate social responsibility." That changed "when he entered the highly commercial world" of U.S. sport, by investing in NBA team Philadelphia 76ers. Then last year "he moved into the sporting big time" when he and his Indonesian business partner Handy Soetedjo acquired 70% of Inter Milan from Italian energy tycoon Massimo Moratti. Following the acquisition, Thohir "sold his stake in the 76ers to concentrate on football" in Italy and the U.S. and Mahaka Group. Turning Inter round "is his biggest challenge." But although he is a big sports fan, he insists that "he took over Inter for business." Thohir: "Football is changing. I want to use the U.S. model, where sport is like the media business, with income from advertising and content, mixed with the consumer goods industry, selling jerseys and licensed products" (FT, 10/5).
