Milan CEO Giorgio Furlani warns the club ‘would’ve gone bankrupt’ without Elliott Management and Calcio must be seen as ‘an industry’ including rules allowing new stadiums.
“We must abandon the idea that football is a game and nothing else. Football is an industry,” Furlani told Fortune Italia.
“We are talking about clubs that have hundreds of millions of Euros in revenue and can bring hundreds of millions of investments into our country. Football is an extraordinary instrument to attract capital and participate in the growth of the country’s GDP.
“There are systemic problems in Italy, among them the sporting infrastructure that is embarrassing, to use a euphemism. We have serious problems of piracy in television, plus a series of rules and laws that do not help us be competitive on a European level.
“So if we all want to incorporate this large chunk of the economy into the wider country’s financial structure, we need to collaborate in synergy.”
Milan had been under Silvio Berlusconi for over 30 years, but tumbled into chaos when it was sold to Yonghong Li.
The mysterious Chinese businessman only completed the purchase with the aid of a loan from Elliott Management and when he was unable to repay it, the US trust fund essentially repossessed the Serie A side.
It was nursed back to financial health and the majority shares were sold to Cardinale’s RedBird last year.
“After difficult years, the relaunch of this club that represents the history of Italian football in the world was made possible by the Elliott fund, who avoided the disaster of bankruptcy,” continued Furlani.
“Today, we are living in an accelerated phase of growth and a new important chapter of evolution, sustained by the strategic vision of Gerry Cardinale, the competence and experience of RedBird in the sport business, media, ability to develop global brands and to create virtuous synergies.
“We have begun a fundamental process to bridge the gap with the biggest clubs in Europe, above all those in the Premier League, who can count on greater revenue.”
With the 100th anniversary of the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, also known as San Siro, the push for Milan and Inter to build their own stadiums continues.
“I think after 100 years it might be time to build a new one, no? We’ve been working for over five years to give Milan a new stadium and showed that it is a priority for us. It is fundamental for the future of the club to return consistently into the elite of international football.
“Foreign business is ready to invest in building new stadiums in Italy, but are prevented from doing so by red tape. We have the desire and the capital at our disposal, but it is impossible to invest.”
Milan are hardly alone in this, as Inter, Roma and Fiorentina have all been working for years to set up new stadium projects with very little genuine progress.
This has been immensely frustrating to the foreign owners of these clubs, who cannot understand the differences from other European countries.
“The question we need to ask is: is football an industry? So if other industries receive help and incentives from the Government to develop, why should football be excluded? If we had let Milan go bankrupt, we’d be here talking about a national disaster. Instead, Milan is healthy and wants to help all of Italian football to reboot.”
#SerieA | #Furlani: "Il Fondo Elliott ha salvato il @acmilan dal fallimento"https://t.co/bEuympmMwt
— Gianluca Di Marzio (@DiMarzio) February 9, 2024
Yeah , you could always you know , field some actual ITALIANS! Complaining about Italian football when you’ve sold your soul to venture capitalists and mocked over 100 years of history by replacing the World famous red and black stripes to some vile virtue signalling pink kit!