The news was expected for months, but finally it materialized: Inter have a new president, with Steven Zhang replacing Eric Thohir. It was welcomed by all the fan base, even because Thohir has not set foot in Milano for months now. But how will Inter’s history judge the role played by the Indonesian tycoon?

A Good Start

Let’s face it, when Thohir first appeared in 2013 he was a breath of fresh air as Moratti was struggling in keeping Inter at high-levels in the post-Triplete era. The Nerazzurri were around €180 million in the red as the repercussions of carefree spending years were now being felt. It was reported how Thohir’s purchase took this debt in account, and Inter’s finances were given the required life-saver.

Predictably the financial aspect was the first priority of the Indonesian when he took over. He addressed this issue through a management restructuring, and various employees who were there through the sympathy of Moratti were replaced with more competent people. Thohir also promised to diversify sources of income and explore new opportunities especially on the Asian market. This gave Thohir the image of a change-maker not only at the club, but also to the Serie A, successfully lobbying for different time-slots during match days to make the league more accessible to Asia.

The Guarin-Vucinic saga

Not even three months passed from Thohir’s first day that he had a major issue to solve. It was January 2014 and Inter’s fans were protesting in Milano at the news that the tenacious midfielder Fredy Guarin was heading to arch-rivals Juventus in exchange of the injury-prone Mirko Vucinic. With the deal on the verge of being announced, SempreInter.com were the first to report that Thohir pulled the plug and called off the deal, to the surprise of everyone.

The ultras and the fan base saw this as a promising sign and started to warm up to Thohir’s presidency, but with the benefit of hindsight this issue also showed that huge problems still existed in the running of the club. Firstly, it exhibited the lack of communication between the managers based in Milano and Thohir who was all around the world. Secondly, it also questioned how the persons advising Thohir were ready to swap Guarin with an injury-prone 30-year old attacker who only played around 300 minutes in the preceding months.

Precious Time Lost

After the Guarin-Vucinic saga, Thohir became aware that more management changes were required. He fired Marco Branca from the position of Technical Director in February 2014, promoting Piero Ausilio in the process. He then brought high-profile managers such as Michael Bolingbroke from Manchester United as CEO, Claire Lewis from Apple and Robert Faulkner from UEFA. Months later, another senior figure, Marco Fassone was given the boot in September 2015 as Thohir finally installed a trusted team full of experts to run the club on his behalf.

But here, one must point out that this process took around a year and a half. This management instability left a negative mark on the sportive area of the club and negative results followed. This can be best highlighted by the sacking of Walter Mazzarri who had just been awarded a renewal by Inter and the appointment of Roberto Mancini three months into the 2015 season.

Opportunistic Transfers

With Roberto Mancini in place, the club started working to address the pressing concern of poor quality in the squad. It was a time where Inter had to field players such as Taider, Gargano, Kuzmanovic, Jonathan, Joel Obi, Schelotto, Mudingayi and Alvaro Pereira just to name a few.

Thohir sought to increase the technical quality through various transfers. But with financial limits in place, more often than not such transfers were just market opportunities who did not leave the desired impact. Established players such as Lukas Podolski, Xherdan Shaqiri, Nemanja Vidic, and Pablo Osvaldo all had an unfruitful short stint, while hot prospects such as Dodo and Yann M’vila failed to live up to expectations. Current players Marcelo Brozovic and Danilo D’Ambrosio were the sole exceptions, together with Gary Medel who also delivered good performances.

A Small Taste Of Victory

The story slightly changed in Thohir’s second summer transfer session. Since the team had been built with Mazzarri’s football in mind, Mancini demanded and received an overhaul of players in 2015/16. Felipe Melo, Jovetic, Ljajic, Miranda, Kondogbia, Murillo, Perisic and Alex Telles were brought in to Mancini’s orders. The improvement of the squad was evident and indeed by the end of the year, Inter went into the Christmas holidays in first place. This gave a small taste of glory to Eric Thohir.

But something, somewhere, went wrong and in January and February Inter forgot how to win. This internal implosion saw Inter losing points week after the another, dropping down to fourth place by the end of the season.

Despite the winter disappointment, the fourth place was the best result in the previous five years. It gave the impression that finally Thohir’s Inter were on the right course. But whoever believed this were soon to be deluded.

De Boer: Thohir’s Greatest Mistake

Despite delivering the best result in five years, the relationship between Mancini and Thohir gradually deteriorated at the end of the season. Sources point out disagreement on the lack of movement on the transfer market as the most probable cause, with Candreva being the only acquisition apart from the free signing of Banega, before Suning splashed out 80 million on Joao Mario and Gabigol as the transfer market was closing. One must add that Mancini also did not take lightly the fact that Thohir left him in the dark on the takeover bid of the club by Chinese giants Suning.

While Inter did not dominate that year’s transfer market, it managed to keep all of its main components, in contrast with Roma and Napoli who were significantly weakened with their sale of Pjanic and Higuain respectively to Juventus. This automatically presented a great opportunity to Inter to surpass them and gain access to the Champions League, the declared aim of Thohir since day one.

But out of the blues, Thohir did the unthinkable and sacked Roberto Mancini just two weeks before the 2016 season kicked off. This happened while Suning as the new owners were familiarising themselves with the club and with Thohir as president still having full control of the club’s management. The Indonesian tycoon took the opportunity to bring Frank de Boer, a coach he has been admiring for his attacking football and use of youth players.

It was at this point where I stopped believing in Eric Thohir.

You simply cannot replace a coach two weeks before a new season, with an inexperienced replacement who never set foot in Italian football before. Results confirmed this bad move and De Boer was sacked in November before anyone could count to ten. From this disillusion, Thohir was gradually given the side by Suning who in fact took an active role in selecting De Boer’s successor. From there Thohir’s involvement rapidly decreased and even his appearances at San Siro became rarer than a baby panda sneezing.

An Embarrassing Figure

With Suning taking over, Thohir was left to serve merely as a figurehead president. But even in this ineffectual role, Eric Thohir made several blunders not fit for an Inter president, embarrassing the Inter community in the process. For starters, on more than one occasion he was caught napping at the San Siro stands while all Inter supporters were biting their nails in anticipation of a good result.

Then there was the huge blunder where during a newspaper interview, Thohir said he started following Inter from the years of the ‘Dutch Trio’, in reference to Gullit, Van Basten and Rijkaard. All great players, except for the fact that they played for the other team in Milan. He then later corrected his mistake, saying that he intended to say the ‘German trio’, in reference to Brehme, Matthaus and Klinsmann who wore the Inter shirt while crowned World Champions in 1990.

In addition to this, corruption claims surfaced from time to time implicating the Indonesian president through work carried out representing his country. While such claims against Thohir were never proved or backed with evidence, this did not stop tarnishing Inter’s reputation on values which the club holds dearly.

Conclusion: It Was All Business All Along

This overview of Thohir’s presidency clearly underlines that Eric Thohir was instrumental in restructuring Inter from a family-owned business to a modern football club which sought to exploit its branding potential.

But it also showed how for Thohir, Inter was simply a piece of good business. He took over when Moratti was in an economic weak position, and then sold the majority stakes at the first chance when Suning came to knock on his door less than three years later. In the meantime, Inter’s performances were unpredictable, uninspiring and incoherent. On the economic front, Inter’s finances started the long way of recovery but the income generated was not enough to evade UEFA’s restrictions.

Ultimately, Eric Thohir will be not be remembered for results obtained in the ground, nor for signing world-renowned top players. But he will be remembered for making an estimated mammoth profit of €180 million in less than five years. While there’s clearly nothing wrong with this, in my view this makes Thohir an excellent businessman, not an excellent president.

James J Piscopo is a journalist based in Malta. 27 years old, he has been following Inter for more than two decades. He writes a weekly editorial exclusively for SempreInter.com