Inter, mission for Marotta: the value of the squad will have to rise to 1 billion

Journalist

December 31, 2025 (changed at 1.35pm) – MILANO

After sailing in the stormy sea building a instant team with the infamous zero market balances, Beppe Marotta has a new mission. Over the past year and a half, the ownership has changed, the strategies have changed, the perspectives have changed. If the Zhang family, submerged in debt during Covid, had adopted a short-term vision, Oaktree has launched a long-term project. The final step will be the new stadium, the intermediate one concerns the other asset that makes the difference in the football industry: the player base. The goal is to make Inter grow organically and elevate its team enterprise value (company value) at a level that ensures a rich capital gain when Americans decide to sell. Nothing surprising: it’s in the DNA of an investment fund. Here then is the task entrusted to the president: to make the Inter squad worth at least one billion euros. We are talking about market value, not the balance sheet value.

estimates

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We already know the objection: there are no objective data to measure how much a player is really worth, other than the price arbitrarily set by the parties at the time of a sale. True, but only partially. Based on benchmarks and algorithms, estimates can be made. Some clubs have even appointed experts to re-evaluate the squad as a business asset, so as to capitalize on it. Managers operating in the transfer market increasingly consult the research carried out by consultancy firms such as Football Benchmark, which periodically updates its Football Benchmark Player Valuation, constructed through a series of factors: analysis of transactions in recent years, role, age, contract duration, individual and team sporting performances, and so on. The December edition assigns the Inter squad a valuation of almost 700 million (696 to be exact), eleventh overall and first in Italy (Juventus 659, Milan 502 and Napoli 494 among the top 20 in Europe).

vertex

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At the top of the table is Real Madrid, at 1463 million, ahead of Arsenal (1433) and Manchester City (1348). Six other teams exceed one billion: PSG, Chelsea, Barcelona, ​​Liverpool, Bayern and Tottenham. It is in this range that Oaktree wants to place Inter, whose most valuable players, according to Football Benchmark, are Lautaro (82 million), Bastoni (76), Barella (73), Thuram (70) and Dimarco (50). The gap that needs to be filled to reach one billion is around 300 million. How to do it? It’s not about spending and squandering: this is not the modus operandi of a shareholder who is particularly attentive to financial sustainability. The key, for Oaktree, is value creation. Hence the launch of operations which in the last transfer campaign have charted the course, marking a clear discontinuity with respect to Chinese management. Mainly futuristic signings: Luis Henrique, Bonny, Diouf and Susic, all between 22 and 24 years old, cost around 80 million for the cards, with a maximum salary that does not exceed 2.5 million net. Marotta has a difficult task: to spend the resources well, so that the investments pay off over time, both with a view to subsequent monetization and to increase the club’s assets. This strategy also includes the confirmations of the most valuable jewels. One of Oaktree’s priorities at the time of taking office, in May 2024, was in fact the renewal of Lautaro and Barella’s contracts.

impact

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If the economic adjustments burden the salary bill, the acquisitions translate into greater depreciation. Inter, which closed the 2024-25 budget with a profit of 35 million, can benefit from an overall light carrying value, after years of a policy of zero parameters: depreciation fell to 61 million (137 in 2020-21), less than Juventus (117), Napoli (111), Milan (84) and Atalanta (68). And the summer exits (primarily Arnautovic and Correa) have further reduced the item, net of income, by a couple of million (another 7 will be released in the event of Pavard’s redemption by Marseille). There is therefore room in the income statement to absorb investments on the market. As long as they are functional to the plan that the Californian fund has in mind.