Antonio Conte might have ended Inter Milan's 11-year wait for a Scudetto title, but Italian gaffer's time at the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza appear numbered. In fact, according to La Gazzetta dello Sport, the 51-year-old tactician could be gone within the next 48 hours.
Despite winning the Serie A crown this season by a huge 12-point lead, Conte never looked to enjoy a great relationship with the Nerazzurri's higher-ups. With that in mind, the coach had a meeting with club president Steven Zhang on Saturday which ended in a huge fallout.
The reason behind all of this is the club's huge financial crisis. Chinese owners Suning and Zhang have ordered the club to raise money, meaning the Italian champions will have to cut their wage bill by 20 percent and will be required to raise $122.4M in player sales.
This means that some of the club's biggest assets, including Romelu Lukaku, Lautaro Martinez, and Achraf Hakimi might be auctioned off in order to balance this books. Unsurprisingly, this did not go down well with the coach.
Conte's reaction was that of anger as he believes his team needs more investment, not spending cuts, in order to build upon their Serie A success. It should be noted that while the Nerazzurri won the Scudetto by a mile, they came up short in the Coppa Italia and, in particular, the UEFA Champions League, crashing out in the group stage.
The tactician has thus reportedly decided to leave and will soon meet with club owner Zhang to discuss the termination of his contract, which has another year on it. Inter are not keen on seeing their head coach leave but they understand that their current financial circumstance prevents them from going ahead with the project they initially planned.
According to the report, the former Chelsea and Juventus boss could leave by Thursday and will likely receive a payout of $7.3M. Should all of this go through, Inter will turn to Massimiliano Allegri, who is currently a free agent, to take over the reins at the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza.
As for Conte, he will probably be in high demand. The Italian came close to joining Real Madrid and with Zidane's future under heavy doubt after Los Blancos' trophyless season, expect Antonio to be linked with the Merengues job once again.
