JAKARTA - President Erick Thohir has spoken about the potential of Inter and the Italian league during an interview session with Indonesian media.
Ahead of his forthcoming trip to Italy, the president said: "I asked Goldman Sachs to look into the possibility of finding a partner in China, where a large portion of the 190 million Inter fans in the Asia-Pacific region and the 264 million Nerazzurri supporters worldwide live. We have to use those numbers to our advantage if we are to get back among the world's top ten clubs.
"The potential of the Chinese market for the football system is enormous and that's why I asked Goldman Sachs to sound out potential partners. We need to work together and they know the market better than me.
"Obviously we're not only looking at China – we can look for partners in other countries too. We have Inter Academies in countries like Saudi Arabia, China and the US, for example. There's nothing strange about looking for commercial partners.
"Inter should not depend solely on buying and selling players. We need to develop our commercial business and become even more international. We've made good progress in the last two years.
"If you look at the rest of Europe you see that the second biggest source of income after TV rights is not stadium revenue but the commercial sector.
"One area where Serie A lags behind the Premier League is that the English league is global and promotes itself on a global scale. The Italian league needs to do that too."
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