To bring the Swiss striker to the Nerazzurri, the then president of Inter went against the then undersecretary of the prime minister’s office. The objective was to nullify the “Lodo Andreotti”, which blocked the purchase of foreign players
In the late summer of 1955 Roger Vonlanthen’s transfer to Inter became a political case. Because of the Vonlanthen affair – a good 25-year-old Swiss footballer – two giants of the time challenged each other to a duel, so to speak: the president of Inter Angelo Moratti, Massimo’s father, with the Agnelli brothers, Gianni and Umberto, the most important figure in Italian football; and a young politician from the Christian Democratic area, an enfant prodigy who at only thirty-six years old – that’s how many he was at the time – to his undoubted merit as well as favored by the support of Alcide De Gasperi – who had introduced him to the political scene – and of Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini – the future Paul VI – had already occupied several seats, all of them important. His name was Giulio Andreotti.