Steven Zhang wanted to "conquer the world" with Inter. Now it feels as if it is collapsing around him.
Just three months after Inter's first Serie A title in 11 years, the club president is being slated by supporters for considering selling beloved striker Romelu Lukaku.
The Nerazzurri, remember, have already lost inspirational coach Antonio Conte, and the best right-back in Europe last season, Achraf Hakimi, since claiming the scudetto.
Both departures hit hard. But Lukaku leaving would be too much to bear for the fans. Indeed, even by 'Pazza Inter' standards, this is an insane situation for the newly crowned champions of Italy to find themselves in.
Conte had seen all of this coming, of course.
The club's owners, Suning, invested approximately €600 million (£518m/$732m) in the club between their takeover in 2016 and the summer of 2020. However, Inter did not spend a single cent during the January transfer window.
"It's a strange situation," Conte told Rai Sport on February 2. "It's pointless to hide it. We had a project but it stopped in August."
And yet a wonderfully well-drilled and endearingly unified Inter still ran away with last season's title race, wrapping up the Scudetto on May 2, sparking wild scenes of celebration in Milan among long-suffering supporters who had been unable to attend matches at the Giuseppe Meazza because of the pandemic.
They barely had time to savour their success, though, with Conte stepping down on May 26. At a time when the fans should have been dreaming about Champions League glory next season, they were dreading further departures.
Conte refused to be drawn on the precise reason for his resignation, but when pressed on his matter in an interview with the Gazzetta dello Sport in June, he tellingly replied "my project never changed", inferring that Suning's had.
The fans were rightly concerned by Conte's exit, and its potential ramifications. He may have a history of quitting clubs because of disputes over transfer policy but this felt different.
However, when a representative from the ultras group 'Curva Nord Milano 1969' met with club management after Conte had quit, he was told that while "sacrifices" would have to be made because of Suning's pandemic-related economic issues, "nothing would be dismantled".
The Nerazzurri still needed to reduce operation costs by between 15 and 20 per cent, and make an €80m (£68m/$95m) profit on their summer transfer dealings, but the subsequent sale of Hakimi to Paris Saint-Germain for €60m (£52m/$71m) put the Serie A champions well on their way towards achieving that goal.
The belief was that Inter could navigate the remainder of the window without losing another important member of their Scudetto-winning side.
However, with CEO Beppe Marotta and sporting director Piero Ausilio still struggling to trim a 31-strong squad, a Chelsea side desperately seeking a star striker have put Suning in an awkward position by offering to spend a British-record fee of €130m (£110m/$155m) on their former forward Lukaku.
As former Nerazzurri president Massimo Moratti admitted, it is a tempting offer for his successors but also posed a question: what's more important to the owners right now – "cash or the team"?
Of course, as far as the fans are concerned, the mere fact that Suning are even thinking about accepting Chelsea's bid is an act of betrayal.
In a banner unfurled outside the club's headquarters on Wednesday, the 'Curva Nord' ultras warned the owners that "Promises must be kept". It was an obvious threat, and one elaborated upon in a subsequent statement.
It read: "Any type of transfer operation must now be, as agreed, to improve the squad. Bringing in cash without adequate investment is not acceptable. That is true for any player.
"We will not just lay down and be treated as fools by anyone and we will act based on what we were told at the end of the season.
"We don’t think anything else needs saying right now."
✍ "Società attenzione, le promesse vanno mantenute
— TUTTOmercatoWEB (@TuttoMercatoWeb) August 4, 2021
Striscione della Curva Nord accanto a sede #Inter pic.twitter.com/UEOOR22Kmz
Indeed, the supporters' stance has been made perfectly clear: if the ultras do not feel a sufficient amount of the Lukaku transfer fee is immediately reinvested in the squad, there will be consequences for Suning, most likely in the form of protests and boycotts.
The Chinese owners' position is undoubtedly perilous. The giddiness and goodwill generated by the Suning-funded title triumph has been replaced by distrust and disdain.
There was already discontent over the fact that the owners chose to accept outside investment from the US firm Oaktree Capital in May, rather than sell the club to BC Partners when they had the chance earlier this year.
Suning could have bowed out as heroes had they departed after the scudetto was sealed; instead, they find themselves facing a bitter fan revolt that could well bring an ugly end to their tenure.
There is some small degree of sympathy for Zhang & Co. in the sense that nobody could have predicted the pandemic, while Chelsea's colossal offer for Lukaku was most unexpected.
But there is understandable anger over the fact that Lukaku's likely sale would mean Hakimi did not need to be sacrificed.
If Inter's financial situation was always so grave, why was the Belgian not offloaded earlier in the window, given it would have instantly alleviated their cash-flow concerns?
As it stands, Conte's successor, Simone Inzaghi, is now facing a tricky search a starting striker just three weeks before the 2021-22 Serie A season gets under way.
"An owner based in China, who avoids being subjected to pressure from the fans, can think of selling a Lukaku for more than €100m, but you cannot consider a sale like this without having first lined up a forward worthy of the champions of Italy," Enrico Mentana of Interspac, a shareholding group set up by supporters in the hope of making the club economically sustainable, wrote on Facebook.
"And please, don't start blaming Marotta and Ausilio: they (along with Conte), brought Hakimi and Lukaku to Milan. With Zhang's money, yes, but this is the first time in the history of football that a club is selling two decisive players in a Scudetto win, after also letting the title-winning coach leave.
"In every group, from a family to a company, if someone can't sort things on their own, even after getting into debt, they ask for help, and accept it."
New No.9s have already been identified, with Atalanta's Duvan Zapata the most obvious like-for-like replacement, though the Bergamaschi are masters of the transfer market and will demand a lofty fee for the 30-year-old Colombian.
Fiorentina's Dusan Vlahovic is an attractive alternative, as an exciting young forward of enormous potential. However, the truth of the matter is that Inter are losing one of the three best centre-forwards in the world right now. There is nobody available right now even remotely capable of filling the colossal void left behind by Lukaku.
"He's the most decisive player in the league, the key man in the attacking department," Fabio Licari wrote in the Gazzetta on Wednesday. "Lukaku is Inter."
But for how much longer? Lukaku was happy to stay at San Siro. He had returned for pre-season training less than two weeks ago admitting that he was thrilled to be back at Appiano Gentile.
He may have had a strong bond with Conte but the striker had spoken to Inzaghi even before the former Lazio coach's appointment as Inter's new boss had been confirmed, and the conversation renewed Lukaku's faith in the club's future.
When Marotta was asked about Premier League interest in Lukaku a fortnight ago, he stated unequivocally that the striker was going nowhere.
The CEO was, and is, convinced that Inter can still meet their budgetary targets by selling unwanted players such as Radja Nainggolan. According to some reports, both he and Ausilio are so upset by the proposed Lukaku transfer that they are considering their positions at the club.
Zhang, then, has plenty to ponder. Suning still believe that €130m is too good an offer to turn down but Gazzetta claims that they are now re-evaluating the situation, after being surprised by the severity of the backlash.
The deal is not yet done. No fee has yet been agreed. Lukaku is willing to leave, having accepted – reluctantly but understandably – that he has a better chance of winning trophies at Stamford Bridge than San Siro.
But there is still time to convince him that Inter can be competitive next season. Marotta, Ausilio and Inzaghi would again be key in that regard but everything now hinges on Zhang and Suning.
A sale would resolve their financial problems, but it would be a public relations disaster, one that they would find impossible to survive.
Suning's ambitious Inter project may well have stopped last August, but Lukaku's sale would end all hope of it ever restarting.