A new era took life in Milan since when the two traditional Italian teams became owned by the Chinese ownership.
Everything started during a hot afternoon at San Siro, exactly on 15 April 2017. On stage there was the derby of “La Madonnina”, the first all in Chinese flavour with the two Asian leaderships guiding AC Milan and Inter. And the presidents already seem to sportively “hate” each-other, it looks like they’ve always been rivals.
Already on that afternoon, Steven Zhang, manager and son of Inter’s owner (told so by Suning) did not shake hands with Yonghong Li, the newly-established Milan president a few days ago. A choice that resulted in a series of jabs, controversies and diatribes throughout the summer, as reported by Tuttosport.
A kind of cold Chinese war, that also involved the intervention of other major leaders like sports director Walter Sabatini, the new Nerazzurri manager who opened Inter’s transfer campaign saying he did not “look at Milan as a model“. The same words the repeated by former owner, Erick Thohir and new coach Luciano Spalletti.
Controversy followed about the stadium, for the money invested and for the projects, which even saw some harsh replies between the mayor of Milan, Giuseppe Sala (well-known Inter supporter) and Marco Fassone, the new CEO of Milan who asked the first citizen not to insinuate fictitious issues regarding the rossoneri club. In short, the derby is fiercer than ever, preparing everyone for a whole year of tensions and mutual hatreds, perhaps precisely due to the lack of handshake from an all Chinese rivalry.
