NEW YORK - Soon after buying Inter Milan in 2016, Chinese retail billionaire Zhang Jindong installed his 24-year-old son to help run one of the most famous football teams in Italy. Zhang Kangyang – who also goes by Steven – embraced his new role. A former analyst at Morgan Stanley, he was soon to be seen driving a Pagani Huayra BC sports car, worth over US$3 million (S$4 million), around the streets of Milan.
On the spoiler were the words Nerazzurra – blue and black – referring to the colours of Inter Milan. Two years later, he was made chairman. Aside from supporting the club at football games across Europe, Mr Steven Zhang became a regular fixture at Italy’s most sought-after social events, ranging from Formula 1 races to Gucci fashion shows.
Last month should’ve been his crowning achievement. On April 22, on a rainy evening in front of 75,000 fans in the San Siro stadium, Inter Milan won their 20th league title by beating hated city rivals AC Milan. But Mr Steven Zhang was absent from the directors’ box, as he had been all year, in part driven by a Hong Kong bankruptcy case.
Instead, he appeared in a video on YouTube congratulating and thanking the club’s staff and players. A month later, Suning, the retail company founded by the senior Zhang, lost control of Inter Milan after defaulting on a loan granted by Oaktree Capital Management, in an example of just how some of Europe’s greatest football clubs, in a bid to remain competitive, have crumbled under u.