Football heavyweight Inter sweats over 'non-payment' of crypto firm's sponsorship deal
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Football heavyweight Inter sweats over 'non-payment' of crypto firm's sponsorship deal
Milan-based Italian football giant Internazionale is facing a rocky start to its relationship with Crypto – amid reports that DigitalBits, a company that this year agreed a USD 87 million sponsorship deal with Inter - There has been a default on a sponsorship payment. Inter made headlines in the world of football and crypto in January, when journalists revealed that the company was ready to sign a three-year deal with DigitalBits.
But Gazzetta dello Sport, Italy's top football newspaper, reported that DigitalBits did not "honour" the "instalment" of payments to Inter - a fact that "complicated" relations between the club and its main sponsor. The club has removed most of the DigitalBits branding from its web-based platform.
While the firm's logo can still be seen in photos of the club's shirts, no other mention of the crypto company appears on the inter-related sites anymore. The company's name has also been removed from the list of official partners on the club's website. In a friendly match held over the weekend, the sponsor's name was removed from the stadium's scoreboard, and Gazzetta reported that when the team plays its next pre-season match on 6 August, it is "likely to be the case".
Both the crypto company and the club want to remain silent on the matter. The newspaper claimed there was "no clarity" on the amount owed in the "overdue tranche" - although everything appeared to be in order when Inter published their most recent balance sheet on 30 June. It appears that DigitalBits honored its payment obligations up to this point.
Further results are on the way, Gazzetta said: the club was set to unveil its jersey before August 10, but "in all likelihood" it would be postponed until September - as it would give DigitalBits more "visibility" before that. There is no desire to give. The latter honors his contract. However, Inter's options are somewhat limited: the club has already sold thousands of DigitalBits-branded replica shirts in advance of the Serie A season at Lecce on 13 August.