Why don’t Inter have a sponsor on their jersey?

Inter demolished AC Milan 2-0 in the Champions League semi-final first leg at San Siro in what continues to be one of the most intriguing and ferocious rivalries in world football. Italy’s second biggest city is split into two and in the first leg, the nerazzurri thrashed their cousins in a game that could have had an even bigger scoreline. In the second leg, it will be Inzaghi’s side who have home advantage and the fans will swap sides in the stadium for the game hoping to book a place in the final.

The Rafa Leão-less red and black stripes (who have now been given a fitness boost) fought against the blue and black in what was the first meeting in a European competition between the two since 2005, when AC Milan emerged victorious from that edition of the Derby della Madonnina. However, you may have noticed that Inter played the game last week without a sponsor on their shirts, as it emerged that the company with whom they had a contract did not fulfil their part of the deal.

Why do Inter not have a sponsor on their jersey?

Inter, despite signing a deal worth €85 million (£75m/$94m) in September 2021, had not received any payments this season from shirt sponsor DigitalBits. Back in November, Inter’s corporate chief executive, Alessandro Antonello, confirmed that the club was looking for a replacement sponsor. The same problem occurred with AS Roma, who had also used the blockchain company as the main shirt partner, meaning that in April of this year, both clubs dropped the use of the logo.

Inter published a statement saying “we understand that the crisis in the cryptocurrency sector, which worsened during the second quarter of the year 2022, significantly affected the ability of the client to fulfil its obligations. We are reserving all the actions and remedies to protect our contractual interests and rights and, in the meantime, we removed the logos of the partner from our website, billboards and jerseys of the youth and women’s sector teams, while retaining, at the moment, the presence of the sponsor on the jersey of the first team.” Obviously this has now been a decision carried over to the men’s team.

MORE DETAIL: How to watch Inter vs AC Milan live on TV or online