Inter Milan President Steven Zhang has asked the players of the Italian team to forgo their next two months’ salaries to save the club.

Skysports reported that Mr Zhang mentioned this in a meeting with the players following their Serie A League Trophy triumph.

Inter Milan was the worst hit by the economic downturn of the coronavirus pandemic amongst Italian teams after recording gross loss of €195 million in the 2019-2020 financial report.

That loss was the highest in the club’s history with the club now grasping for survival with humongous debt.

The coronavirus pandemic which struck from Wuhan, China in late 2019 spread to the rest of the world early 2020 leading to the shutdown of economic activities.

Football stadiums were shut, causing a shortfall in Football Clubs’ finances owing to non-availability of match-day revenue and new sponsorship deals.

The financial report by La Gazetta Dello Sport showed that Inter Milan leads the debt race in Serie A with €630million debt about over €70million more than second placed AS Roma on €552.3million.

Antonio Conte recently led the Nerrazuris to their first Scudetto in 11years since Jose Mourinho’s era with two games left in the ongoing 2020/2021 Serie A season.

Mr Zhang pleaded with the players while explaining how the coronavirus pandemic has affected their finances and the need to make “sacrifices”.

The players are expected to take their decisions to surrender their salaries individually and independently even as the club assured them of the payment of their entitlement bonus for the league trophy.

Reactions have continued to trail this move by the board with some analysts stating that some players may be sold to clubs in order to raise funds.

Chelsea-linked striker, Romelu Lukaku, one of the club’s biggest assets, is currently being coveted by teams and the club may be hoping to balance its books with sales.

Other teams like Arsenal have also had reasons to ask their players to take pay cuts to cushion the effects of the pandemic’s economic downturn.