Former CEO of Juventus Giuseppe Marotta joined Internazionale Milano, better known as Inter Milan, as the club's new CEO of sports, Marotta himself announced in a video posted on Inter's Twitter account on Thursday.
"I am happy and proud to be beginning a new professional challenge at a prestigious club such as Inter. President Steven Zhang has an ambitious project and I am looking forward to becoming an active part of that," said Marotta.
Giuseppe Marotta (L), new CEO for sports of Inter Milan and the club's president Steven Zhang Kangyang (R). /VCG Photo
Marotta will work with Alessandro Antonello who's in charge of corporate activities in Inter's co-CEO mode and both of them will report to president Steven Zhang. "As Inter, we want to win, entertain, inspire and connect people through football. Beppe (Marrota) is one of the best executives in the football industry and will help us to achieve our goals," said Zhang.
Marotta's appointment was approved at Inter's board meeting on Thursday. As one of the best professional soccer managers in Italy, he was also one of the biggest contributors to Juventus in winning seven consecutive titles of Serie A.
Marotta joined Juventus in 2010 and he brought multiple valuable assets including Andrea Pirlo, Stephan Lichtsteiner, Arturo Vidal and manager Antonio Conte to the club, helping the Old Lady win their first Serie A championship in six years.
During his years in the club, Marotta showed the world how to get the best players at the least cost. For example, he introduced Pirlo and Paul Pogba for free, found Claudio Marchisio from youth team and spent only 11.8 million U.S. dollars.
Paul Pogba (L) and Andrea Pirlo (R) after the 2014-15 UEFA Champions League Final and both are introduced to Juventus by Marotta for free. /VCG Photo
Having been known for signing promising young men and quality veteran players with no more than 17 million U.S. dollars, Marotta began to disagree with Juventus once the club began to pay big prices for players like Miralem Pjanic and Gonzalo Higuain. It's hard to say who's correct because good players cost good money. Marotta left Juventus in October.
"It's certainly going to be an important chapter in my professional life, and I will have great responsibility but that doesn't daunt me. It is the start of a new chapter and it must be one marked by success," said Marotta talking about his new career with Inter.
The future of Luciano Spalletti, manager of Inter Milan, is in the hands of Marotta. /VCG Photo
Though he sounded confident, Marotta is faced with some quite difficult tasks.
First, he needs to decide the future of Inter's manager Luciano Spalletti. Though Inter were eliminated from the UEFA Champions League on Tuesday and currently see no hope of competing for Serie A title with Juventus, firing the manager in the middle of season is never a good idea, not to mention that the team are still No.3 on the standing table and thus will qualify for next season's Champions League. However, when the season ends, Spalletti's future will be up for discussion.
Second, Inter's need to upgrade its franchise is no secret but the real test for Marotta will be who he should sell and who he should keep. With UEFA looking at Inter's balance sheet and the club's limited budget, plus the loss of tens of millions of U.S. dollars due to their elimination from the Champions League, Inter will need to sell before they purchase. Marotta will need to find a way to make the best business without wasting money.