Como, Suwarso: “The deal for Sucic was done, but the costs weren’t worth it. Here’s who recommended Baturina to me”

The president of Como, Mirwan Suwarso, told LNS journalist Hanif Thamrin about several behind-the-scenes transfer dealings involving Como and Inter.

With Dinamo Zagreb linked to both deals, Como left the signing of Sucic to Inter but made a move for Baturina on a particular recommendation.

Baturina recommended by Romano

"Baturina signed thanks to Football Manager? No, that's not exactly how it happened. In fact, Fabrizio Romano recommended Baturina to me. One day he said: "Are you interested in getting to know this player?" I replied: "Who is he? I don't know him." He explained that an agent was interested in meeting me. I don't normally meet agents, but I asked who it was. When I heard the name Baturina, it sounded familiar.

So I asked our data department to study him. They replied: "We don't even need to look at the numbers, we already know who he is." But I insisted: "Check anyway." He was playing for Dinamo Zagreb and I wanted to find out whether he would be able to adapt quickly to Serie A.

It was all set for Sucic, but...

"In fact, the player we initially wanted to sign was Petar Sucic. Yes, the one at Inter. We had already reached an agreement with Dinamo Zagreb for him. I don't remember exactly all the steps from that period, but we had an agreement with the club. The problem was that the fees demanded by the agents were almost equal to the transfer fee, and at that point we said it made no sense to go ahead.

Sucic went to Inter and we had the opportunity to sign Baturina. We were actually looking for a player with attributes more like Sucic's, a number 8. But Baturina was an interesting opportunity. We studied the data, which was all positive, and decided to go ahead".