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