A lot of things have happened at Chelsea over the past year, with the return of Romelu Lukaku somewhere near the top.
The Belgian was brought back to Stamford Bridge for a figure of over £100m in a transfer that hasn’t worked out for anyone involved, except maybe Inter.
Thomas Tuchel and Lukaku haven’t exactly worked well together, as the 29-year-old has only scored 15 goals in 44 games this season, and there’s now a lot of talk about him wanting to return to his former club.
The problem is, that would cost a lot of money, which the Serie A side don’t exactly have.
This doesn’t mean they aren’t interested in the idea, but pulling it off remains a tough task, as explained by both Gazzetta dello Sport and Corriere dello Sport on Monday.
In fact, the former describe the operation as ‘not an impossible hypothesis, but very, very complex’.
They point out that Lukaku is ‘willing to make an economic sacrifice, reducing his salary in order to make him fall within Inter’s parameters’, but halving his wages ‘is not enough’, and ‘it’s necessary to speed up the times to allow the Nerazzurri club to once again take advantage of the tax breaks of the Growth Decree.
Basically, if the player leaves Chelsea and returns to the Serie A side ‘by the end of June, his new €7m/year contract (half of what was expected at Chelsea) would weigh €10m gross for Inter and not €14m as it would be without concession’.
Over at Inter, Beppe Marotta and co. ‘would welcome Lukaku with open arms, but only under the right conditions and without creating “annoyance” at Chelsea’, meaning he needs to ‘convince the English club to let him leave on loan and in a short period of time’.
Corriere dello Sport have their own take on the matter, but theirs is more Paulo Dybala centric, explaining that if the club had a choice between the Argentine and the Belgian, ‘the transfer market men of Steven Zhang and Simone Inzaghi have no doubts and vote compactly for Big Rom’.
Their issues would lie in getting Chelsea to agree the deal, explaining that if Marina Granovskaia continues to manage the market until September, ‘it will not be good news’, as the Lukaku transfer last summer ‘came at the end of an angular negotiation, with no discounts’ from Inter, which the Blues director ‘did not take well’.
If they do try and pull of a transfer, ‘the formula to bring him back will be the annual loan, because the new regulations do not provide for a duration longer than 12 months for temporary deals’.
However, Lukaku ‘would like the guarantee of never going back because he has broken up with Tuchel and the former PSG manager doesn’t look favourably upon him’.
That’s why ‘it’s necessary to work on a more complex operation, with a first loan, which should be followed by another that cannot be formalised now’.
Then, ‘in 2024, we would think about the acquisition of Big Rom’s transfer, who will be 31 years old’ at that point.
A lot to take in, but that’s where we stand with Romelu Lukaku to Inter.
