Antonio Conte: Inter Milan cancel news conference after paper prints 'offensive letter'

Inter Milan manager Antonio Conte
Antonio Conte joined Inter in May after being sacked by Chelsea in July 2018

Inter Milan cancelled a pre-match news conference on Saturday after what it called an "offensive letter" about manager Antonio Conte was printed in Italian newspaper Corriere dello Sport.

The Serie A club saidexternal-link the letter, submitted by a reader, was accompanied with a comment from one of the paper's journalists "justifying its aggression".

"In order to send out a message to all media outlets that they must 'guarantee respect for people', there won't be a press conference today," the club said.

Inter were eliminated from the Champions League on Tuesday, losing 2-1 to a young Barcelona team to finish third in their group behind the Spanish giants and Borussia Dortmund.

In the letter, a Bologna fan said that he "enjoyed seeing the great Inter outclassed by Barcelona B", who had shown Inter's "worn-out" coach how to play football.

The fan added that although Conte has won a lot of games in his career, he has "never shown a good game" and despite spending more than 150 million euros (£125m), Inter could not beat Slavia Prague and lost to Dortmund in the Champions League.

A journalist added a comment to the letter, saying that Inter have "thrown away the Champions League and maybe the rest too" by loaning striker Mauro Icardi to French side Paris St-Germain.

The journalist added: "No Icardi, No Party".

Earlier this month, Roma, along with Inter's rivals AC Milan, announced they would not work with Corriere dello Sport until January in response to the paper using the headline 'Black Friday' accompanied by images of Romelu Lukaku and Chris Smalling.

Corriere dello Sport defended the "innocent" headline in a comment piece on its website, saying it was a way to celebrate diversity.

Inter play Fiorentina in Serie A on Sunday.

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