The Inter striker was already advertising in the 1930s, but you had to wait until 1981 to see the sponsors on the shirts. In the meantime, the ice cream manufacturer had found a trick…
In the beginning it was 100 square centimeters on the front of the shirts. A concession made by the Football Association to the clubs, always desperate for money, because, as usual, costs exceeded revenues and presidents had to put money in from their own pockets if they did not want to drive the clubs into bankruptcy. Funds, trusts, foreign investors and all those things that contemporary football knows all too well don’t exist. Back then there was only one man at the top, usually a wealthy businessman who was passionate about football and perhaps particularly sensitive to notoriety and newspaper headlines. It almost always happened that this gentleman wasted his fortune by buying this or that player, whether Italian or foreign, and the fun always ended in tears.
