Over the past month in Italian football a serious scandal is brewing, in the midst of which the Inter forward Mauro Icardi has again appeared. Over the past few days, the football player managed to spoil relations with the leadership and fans of the club, and his wife and agent Wanda Nara played a major role in this.

As a result, the events around Icardi turned into an unpleasant episode that occurred the day before the Inter match with Sampdoria in the Italian Championship. Unknowns threw stones at the car in which was the spouse and children of a football player. According to La Gazzetta dello Sport, no one was injured in the attack.

Contract extension

Another scandal around Icardi arose for two reasons. One of them is the difficult process of negotiating the renewal of a football player’s contract. The current agreement of the Argentine with the "Inter" is calculated until the end of the season 2020/2021, but the Milan club wants to increase its term by another two years. Thus, the management team hopes to protect themselves from losing their main star.

In particular, it intends to remove the compensation clause from the forward contract. According to Calciomercatto, in the current contract they amount to € 110 million. In the event that any club agrees to pay the above amount, Inter will not be able to prevent the transfer of its leader. It is noted that the price suits Madrid “Real”, which in the summer is ready to make an Argentinean transfer.

The topic of extending the contract was one of the most discussed in Serie A. Local media wrote that Icardi allegedly did not mind not only extending the agreement with his team, but also deleting the compensation clause, but only in case of a significant salary increase. According to Total Sportek, at the moment the Argentine receives € 4.5 million per year, but wants to earn twice as much.

In the end, neither the club nor the player himself could ignore the topic of such rumors. On his Instagram page, Icardi turned to those publications that inflate rumors about his cash appetites.

“I want to explain the situation to all fans who read pseudo-journalists and“ serious ”newspapers who write about what they don’t know. Contract renewal will occur only when Inter makes a correct and concrete proposal. Only after that we will be able to really talk about the prolongation of the agreement, leaving aside the lie that has been spread in the media, ”said Icardi.

At the same time, the leadership of “Inter” in the person of President Stephen Zhang expressed confidence that the agreement with the forward will be necessarily extended.

“At the moment, with Ikardi, everything is going well. It is not unusual for the media to write a lot about this during the negotiation period. Mauro is our captain and a true professional, and we will definitely discuss his contract, but there are no problems between us and rumors in the press have no effect on us, ”Zhang quoted Football Italia with reference to Calciomercato.com.

In turn, the director general of the Nerazzurri, Giuseppe Marotta, hastened to assure the fans that the contract with Icardi would necessarily be renewed.

Sayings of Nara

The second reason for the scandal was the words of his wife and part-time agent football player Wanda Nara. The girl has repeatedly become the cause of conflicts between Icardi and the fans of "Inter", and now provoked a tense situation between the player and the leadership of the team.

The other day, the forward’s wife visited the Tiki-Taka football program, during which she allowed herself a number of harsh statements. In particular, Nara said that “Nerazzurri” did not make her husband proposals for the extension of the contract.

“I did not start negotiations. When they called me, I didn’t even mention it. We talked to get to know each other better, talked about many things. I would like Inter to better defend Mauro. Sometimes in the media all sorts of dirty rumors that come from inside the club. But the priority in our country is precisely “non-temptation”: we are not discussing a new contract, because there is no hurry. There are two more years, ”Narci quotes Calciomercato.

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Publication from Wanda nara (@wanda_icardi) Jan 1, 2019 at 10:50 PST

She also honored the comments of Icardi’s partners game and the work of Inter’s head coach Luciano Spalletti. According to her, the former Zenit mentor should use her husband on the field differently.

“In the match with Parma, Martinez scored thanks to the fact that Mauro moves well without a ball. Icardi himself was of little help. Perhaps Spalletti should use it in conjunction with Lautaro, because they are friends. There is no rivalry between them, ”Nara added.

Deprivation of the captain’s armband and lack of membership

Nara's words not only did not go unnoticed, but led to serious and immediate consequences. Only two days after the sensational interview with agent Icardi was deprived of the status of captain.

“The club confirms that Samir Handanovich is the new captain of Inter,” the message says on the team’s official Twitter page.

Later it became known that Icardi was not included in the application for the Europa League match with the Vienna "Rapid". According to Gianluca Di Marzio, the reason for this was the statements of Nara in the television show, as well as the reaction of the player himself. According to the journalist, the forward did not comment in any way on the words of his wife, who allowed herself criticism of the club.

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Publication from Mauro Icardi - MI9 (@mauroicardi) 14 Feb 2019 at 1:09 PST

At the same time, Inter's mentor Spalletti clarified the situation, saying that Icardi himself had refused to go to Vienna.

“We wanted to include it in the application, but he refused and did not fly to Vienna. Apparently, Mauro disappointed the decision to deprive him of the captain's armband. Now we have an important match, after which we will have to clarify the situation in the club around Icardi. I am concerned about contracts a little, but the relations with the players are very important, ”Spalletti Football Italia quotes.

However, this misadventures Icardi is not over. So, on Valentine's Day, it became known that the Argentine will not help his club in the Italian championship match with Sampdoria. According to Sport Mediaset, the football player was injured in training and will not have time to recover to the meeting with “blucherkyati”, which is scheduled for February 17.

Rumors of care

According to former football player Ablan Moreno, in the future, the situation with Icardi can only get worse.

“Mauro has changed, and with him his thinking and attitudes have changed. From the side it seems obvious. Honestly, I was expecting this, and I think the worst is yet to come. "Inter" did the right thing, depriving him of the bandages. Given the behavior of his entourage, the club behaved accordingly, ”Moreno Calciomercato said.

According to him, the spouse Ikardi is the main culprit of what happens to a football player.

“When I represented the interests of Mauro, all issues were resolved on a professional and, moreover, less public level. Now Ikardi no longer controls his fate. He should be careful, because Inter made it clear to all the clubs in the world that this player has problems. This is a very strong message. I do not consider him a friend. He showed what I meant to him when he abandoned me after Wanda appeared. I think that choice was reflected in his career. He wore Barcelona and Inter t-shirts with me. Everything that is happening now is a consequence of his actions, ”the agent added.

The latest events around Icardi only gave rise to a new portion of rumors about the possible departure of a football player. So, in the publication Corriere dell Sera there was information that the Milan club seriously thought about selling the Argentine striker. It is noted that the “non-strife” intend to part with Mauro in the summer and can even make concessions in terms of the amount of transfer and give the player for € 80–90 million.

At the same time, there is an opinion in football circles that statements by Nara about interest in a number of clubs in Icardi are not true. This was stated by Pierpaolo Marino, a former sports director of Napoli and Udinese. According to him, Piero Auzilio, Inter's director, shared this information with him.

“I was at the San Siro stadium when Inter played a match with Benevento in the Italian Cup. Then I had the opportunity to talk with Auzilio. He said that there was no hint of the proposal for the transfer of Icardi. It turns out that only his wife says that a string of clubs is being built for Mauro. Such situations are resolved when a player returns to the team with humility and the desire to play even better, ”quotes Marino Football Italia.