A net spend smaller than Brighton’s – How Inter reached the UCL final on a shoe-string budget

First final since 2010 

Inter Milan would undoubtedly cause the upset of the season on Saturday, should they get the better of Manchester City in the Champions League final. Simone Inzaghi’s side have done tremendously well to overcome the likes of Porto, Benfica and cross-city rivals AC Milan but the odds are firmly stacked against the Serie A side as they prepare to take on Pep Guardiola’s star-studded team. 

While the club’s march to the final will be seen as a heroic effort by Inzaghi’s team and a clear sign of Italian football’s rejuvenation, it will also go down as a remarkable piece of squad planning and off-the-field business from the Nerazzurri. Because while few would argue that Inter had one of the best teams in Europe this season, the manner in which they’ve managed to upset the odds on a shoestring budget has been nothing short of remarkable. 

Inter Milan’s starting XI for tonight’s game cost the club just €114m in transfer fees

And they’re now 45 minutes away from a Champions League final

— Transfermarkt.co.uk (@TMuk_news) May 16, 2023

- Advertisement -

A team full of bargains and has-beens 

Indeed, the club’s semi-final clash with AC Milan was far from the star-studded affair that football fans got from Manchester City and Real Madrid and that’s perfectly evident from the starting XI that Inter used to reach the final of the Champions League. With an average age of 28.9, Inzaghi’s team was full of players that had either been signed as young talents or on free transfers later in their career. As such, Inter’s starting XI in the second leg was signed by the club for just €114 million. And a look at the club’s transfer dealings in the last five years points to even more impressive work off the field. 

For example, over the past five seasons Inter’s total expenditures on transfer fees stands at just €501m. While that may seem like a large sum of money, it actually pales in comparison to the kind of clubs that tend to challenge for the Champions League. Among Europe’s biggest clubs, Inter rank just 14th for money spent on transfer fees since 2017 and more than half of what Chelsea (€1.23 billion) have spent in the same period. 

When we then look at the club’s net spend in the transfer market (i.e money spent on transfers minus money earned from selling players) it paints an even more impressive picture of Inter’s business off the field. In the past five seasons, the club’s net spend on transfer fees stands at just €47m. Which is slightly less than Brighton’s spending in the same period of time and 55th among all clubs across the world. In other words, Inter have managed to reach the pinnacle of European football by seeking out deals, signing up impressive young talents and avoiding the need to spend big on risky transfers. And it has been that clever thinking off the pitch that has now guided this team to their first Champions League final since 2010. 

Homepage