Gazidis on rebirth of Milan and why Serie A will soon ‘be thriving’

Milan CEO Ivan Gazidis explains how the club threw out all the expensive contracts of players like Leonardo Bonucci, Gonzalo Higuain and Gianluigi Donnarumma to create a new era with Paolo Maldini, Stefano Pioli and Rafael Leao.

The former Arsenal chief sat down with ESPN to discuss the current state of a club that was at the top of the world in the late 1980s and early 1990s, most recently winning the Champions League in 2007 and the Club World Cup in 2008, but fell on hard times.

Silvio Berlusconi sold to Yonghong Li in 2017 after 31 years at San Siro, the Chinese investor defaulted on the €300m loan deal he had used to complete the €740m purchase, so Elliott Management effectively repossessed the club in 2018.

Many expected Elliott to sell off at a profit, but they have won over the fans by building a team that not only kept the budget under control, but also won their first Serie A title in 11 years.

“It wasn’t the comfortable or low-pressure option,” Gazidis told ESPN about accepting the job in December 2018. “At the same time, I believed in the possibility of it. Milan is one of the great football clubs in the world and I thought we could bring something new into the Italian environment.”

He encouraged the clampdown on massively expensive contracts from the previous administration, instead building on promising youth and getting costs under control.

“There were a lot of contracts like that, almost too many to name – expensive players like Bonucci for example. They signed Gianluigi Donnarumma, an excellent goalkeeper, but to a huge contract in order to keep him. Go through the team, the contracts were out of whack with performance.

“There were probably 10 different examples of players who fall into that category. And players, when they are overpaid relative to their performance, are really difficult to get out.”

This eventually saw Milan take a stand and allow players like Donnarumma, Hakan Calhanoglu, Franck Kessie and Alessio Romagnoli to leave as free agents rather than accept agents dictating terms.

“We faced a lot of scepticism about the policy of signing young players, especially in Milan. Italy in general I think is sceptical about giving young players a chance, Milan in particular because of the pressure of the crowd and the San Siro environment has a reputation that young players can get crushed there.”

Elliott also broke from Berlusconi and Yonghong Li by promoting Paolo Maldini to a prominent directorial role, one also allowing him to represent the club’s remarkable history.

“In the recruitment process, Paolo is fundamental, speaking to each of these players to understand the way they think and what is motivating them. We call him our point of reference. Paolo is speaking to the agent as an initial point of contact.

“The next conversation is directly between Paolo and the player, with Ricky (Massara) as well. Immediately, he is developing a relationship in the recruitment phase because he knows the insecurities that young players have. He’s been through it all himself, he knows their concerns.”

Most famously, Theo Hernandez confessed he could not turn Milan down after meeting his hero Maldini in Ibiza.

“Paolo really understood that Theo had development to do as a footballer, but also as a young man, and Paolo took him under his wing. You still see it today. Paolo goes to the training ground virtually every single day.

“Theo looks at Paolo almost as a second father. Paolo has that relationship with number of the players.”

Another crucial step for Milan was wiping the slate clean and agreeing to stay out of the Europa League for 2019-20 to resolve the 2015-2017 Financial Fair Play breach and avoid a longer ban.

“That probably was the lowest point,” confessed Gazidis. “To take a ban for a club whose reputation is built on Champions League football was a very difficult thing to accept. But Milan had never been thought of as a business before. Clubs are social and cultural institutions, but if you don’t have a solid business plan behind it, the wheels can come off the wagon.”

The other transformative moment was choosing Stefano Pioli to replace Marco Giampaolo in late 2019 and then deciding to stick with him, despite the advanced talks with Ralf Rangnick.

“A little bit like Paolo, he wants to understand the players as people and he cares about them. That makes them ready to run through a wall for him.”

Pioli was also joined by leaders in the locker room, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Simon Kjaer, from January 2020.

“They came in and provided broad shoulders for the young players. Ibra never accepts less than 110% from anybody at any time. Ibra was extremely demanding on everybody. We actually tried to bring him in a year earlier, but Ibra felt it wasn’t the right time.

“With Zlatan, he’s obviously a very powerful personality. If he came into the wrong environment, that could lead to friction. I think our environment was the perfect challenge for him, one of the biggest in his career. Could he lead this group to a Scudetto? He really embraced that.”

Among the younger players who flourished under Pioli’s guidance was Rafael Leao, now attracting offers of almost €120m from Chelsea.

“Rafa didn’t have an easy time here. He wasn’t playing and when he did, his performances were up and down. He needed a little bit of time. He got that time and support. We didn’t deviate from our plan very much. And where we spent bigger money, we didn’t deviate from it at all.”

The future now sees RedBird purchasing the club for €1.2bn and plans for a new stadium to replace San Siro, in conjunction with Inter.

“Milan is one of the giants of the game. It should be spoken in the same breath as Real Madrid. It just needs to be breathed back to life. I think we are doing that, but we are only at the end of the beginning. The next phase of growth will be really important,” added Gazidis.

“There are four pillars to our strategy. The first was fix the on-field performance. The second was enhance the capability of the organisation — getting the right management. Third was to drive the commercial revenues to a new level by bringing in good processes and the fourth is the stadium. That fourth one has been challenging at times.”

While the Premier League is currently the financial behemoth, Gazidis is confident Serie A can return to its 1990s heyday and the key will be new stadiums like the one planned for 2027.

“This country is a sleeping giant. The football clubs here are enormous because of the history, the culture they represent.

“Italian football has been through a hard time but I’m absolutely convinced 10 years from now, it’ll be thriving, playing in modern stadiums with some of the biggest club names, best style of play, most passionate fans in the world. What we do will have an impact not just on Milan the club, not just on Milano the city, but on Italy the country.”