Piero Ausilio had hoped for a quieter Sunday. A spot of family time before meeting up with the squad at their training camp in the Dolomites where he was due on Monday to introduce new signing Caner Erkin to the media. Unfortunately for Inter’s director of sport, a storm in the Twittersphere put a dampener on his day-off. “I wasn’t angry,” Ausilio insisted, “I just had to work a little.”
Wanda Nara, the wife and agent of Inter captain Mauro Icardi, had refreshed her mentions that morning and decided to answer the questions of some of her followers. “I don’t want [Mauro to leave]” was her reply to one of them. “Mauro doesn’t want to either… The club needs to sell him…” The indiscretions continued and as they did one imagines Inter got more and more uncomfortable. “It’s to do with them,” Wanda told another follower, “not us.”
The tweets were then swiftly deleted; either at Icardi’s request, the club’s or after Wanda herself came to the realisation that she had gone too far and it had been a mistake to take this public. Except just as Ausilio had sat down to relax again, Wanda then granted an exclusive and explosive interview to calciomercato.
“As far as I know,” she said, “Inter have put Mauro up for sale. There are a number of clubs interested. We will assess the situation with the utmost respect for everyone. Mauro would be very sorry to leave Inter, but we have got to know the financial situation of the club and evidently they can’t keep Icardi. There is no buy-out clause and we hope Inter don’t price him out of the market, but ask for a figure that’s in line with his contract.”
Inter’s legs were trembling and not because of the double sessions Roberto Mancini had just put the players through in Riscone di Brunico. Wanda’s words came, in Ausilio’s opinion, in the “wrong place at the wrong time” and while “there is a chance to talk” in private about the things she touched upon, there is one inconvenient truth to reckon with on this matter. “It’s been fun,” Ausilio said, “but let’s get serious. Icardi extended his contract a year ago. We gave him the captain’s armband. He is unsellable.” Case closed then.
Not as far as Wanda is concerned. In another great scoop for calciomercato, she hit back, changing her story a little. It isn’t that Inter can no longer afford to keep him. Far from it. It’s that they don’t appreciate him enough. Team Icardi clearly has an issue with the contract they signed last June. According to Wanda, his guaranteed earnings are more or less the same. Where Icardi got a raise was in performance-related bonuses and the sale of 50% of his image rights.
Acceptable a year ago, the terms they agreed to are no longer, which begs the question: why sign it in the first place if they were so unfavourable? Frankly it doesn’t reflect well on Wanda’s ability to strike the best deal for her client and this could be construed as an attempt to rectify a mistake. Alternatively, maybe the Icardis took the decision a year ago to do right by Inter and put them first rather than themselves. They’re happy in Milan, reluctant to uproot a young family, Icardi’s love of Inter seems genuine, and, mindful of the club’s financial situation and the willingness to ‘go big’ albeit within the constraints of FFP, accepted the best deal Inter could offer even if it wasn’t the best for them.
What transpired was a compromise and a paradox as the new contract simultaneously represented an improvement for Icardi and a sacrifice. He did better out of Inter but still could have done even better elsewhere. Content with it at the time, a lot has obviously changed since then. For starters, Icardi was Inter’s highest earner for little more than a week. Soon after announcing his extension, Inter bought Geoffrey Kondogbia and handed him a salary worth half a million more.
Then last month the Suning takeover happened. Inter’s new Chinese owners are the same ones who paid Shakhtar €50m to bring Alex Teixeira to Jiangsu. His deal is believed to be €10m a year. Wanda's motives couldn’t be any more transparent. You have to admire her opportunism. It probably wasn’t a coincidence when she revealed Icardi “could have accepted an offer from a Chinese club worth €25m over two seasons last week.”
After injecting €184m into Inter, Suning have given the club much greater room for manoeuvre. Not enough to match the offer from China but enough to make Icardi, Inter’s most valuable player, their best paid player as well. Even if last season wasn’t up to the same standard as the one before, Inter’s No.9 still averaged a goal every 50 touches and had the best conversion rate in Serie A [28.1%]. However, there are better, more dignified, ways to go about getting what you feel you’re due.
Even if Wanda has argued that it’s not about money, citing the decision to turn down the offer from China as evidence, it very clearly is about money and the risk with this modus operandi is that it does nothing for Icardi’s image with the fans. On the contrary, it only damages it. He has been made to look like a mercenary which is to do a disservice to him. At the end of last season, Icardi said: “I am absolutely staying here.” Where other footballers have chosen to be coy about their future - “never say never” - he has instead been emphatic in his commitment to Inter. This whole situation has changed all of that, creating a problem for him, one that Inter fans hope will be resolved as soon as possible.
Icardi is still expected to stay at San Siro, even amid interest from Atletico. Let’s be clear: Wanda’s demands are one thing. Wanderlust is another.
Does Icardi deserve a new contract already at Inter? Let us know in the comments below
