A reporter for Il Sole 24 Ore claims both Inter owners Suning and Milan patrons Elliott Management are looking to sell the Serie A clubs.
Il Sole 24 Ore is Italy’s equivalent of the Financial Times and Carlo Festa is one of their chief reporters.
Festa insists that “both Inter and Milan are potentially on sale. Suning will accept the first suitable offer. Elliott are getting closer to the end of the temporal horizon of their investment.
“Investors will be able to choose between two clubs in Milan.”
Suning’s situation is no secret, as they have had to vastly scale back their investments in the wake of the pandemic and a clampdown in China on dealings in other countries.
They have already sold Achraf Hakimi and Romelu Lukaku to balance the books, also shutting down their Chinese Super League club Jiangsu Suning.
As for Milan, Elliott Management are an investment fund who essentially received AC Milan after previous club President Yonghong Li defaulted on loan repayments, leading to a repossession of his assets.
The intention had always been to help develop the club, make it more of an appetising prospect for future investors and then sell at a profit.
Now that they have qualified for the Champions League, that time is coming to find a long-term owner.
Inter e Milan sono entrambi potenzialmente in vendita. Suning accetera’ la prima offerta congrua. Elliott si avvicina alla fine dell’orizzonte temporale del suo investimento. Gli investitori potranno scegliere tra due squadre di Milano pic.twitter.com/p8cEPDjT5b
— carlo festa (@carlopaolofesta) August 15, 2021
Thank God?
It’s high time that Milan affords top signings again.
Whilst Inter‘s need for a sale is most likely more of an ’emergency’ than Milan‘s, this is not really a surprise. Naturally and thankfully, there will be more barriers in the way to hopefully stop a gulf state takeover given Italy’s rigid rules when it comes to foreign ownership. From a personal point of view, that would be the last thing I’d want for Milan. The whole idea of losing our identity and become like a Man City or PSG would be a very distasteful prospect. I’d favour an Italian consortium takeover. If the likes of Massara and Maldini are involved and potentially kept on, they could look to attract investment from multiple potential partners.
The real issues with remain no matter who buys the club. There will still be a huge imbalance between Serie A when compared to premier league clubs and PSG. The TV money will still be an issue and of course there is the long running question over the news stadium – an issue that seems to have been brushed under the carpet. Whoever takes over will once again be caught in no man’s land between not investing enough and investing too much whilst ending up falling foul of FFP.
I would also like to point out that Festa’s tweet suggests ‘potentially’ up to for sale. Not quite the same as ‘up for sale’.
Sadly both clubs are victims of Chinese foreign ‘investments’ as well as Italians regressed policies. Not only Italian government bodies don’t help but put more harm on Italian clubs. Why in the hell building stadiums is a behemoth of an issue in Italy? we are in 21st century for god sake… and this is only one of these issues… another? just something short term? Italy is STILL debating to open up their stadium to fans in limited capacity? Are they serious?!
@I MISS JUVE IN SERIE B. What, in comparison to your Boris and his thousands of daily cases and still 100 plus people dying a day? Keep your politics to yourself.
Rosario, unfortunately Italy’s “rigid rules” didn’t prevent the Yonghong Li disaster at Milan.
it is unlikely an Italian ‘consortium’ or owner exists who could compete financially with the Oligarchs and oil states that own PSG, Man City and Chelsea. Their funds are limitless. Despite the murky provenance of the money behind Chelsea (for example) the owner has been behind the club for the long term. And this isn’t happening in Serie A as the top teams (other than Juve) are in a period of instability. I don’t claim to know what the answer is – but I am definite that modernizing the infrastructure will really help. And this is where the local comune and the state can and should get involved.
@Vero Rossonero. When you look at where Milan are now in terms of have a clean and healthy financial balance sheet, the Li takeover doesn’t look so bad now. Obviously that is with the benefit of hindsight. But if it wasn’t for him, Elliott wouldn’t be involved with Milan.
@Feroli. It doesn’t necessarily have to be an Italian consortium. It could be Italian, European or global. What I certainly wouldn’t want is an ex Russian convict like Roman or one of the rogue gulf states.
The most inter has generated in Revenue is a mere 420 million and you look at the PSG’s and EPL teams generation close to double of that so how can you expect to compete with the big boys with half the revenue ? i mean look at it this way, even with this kind of revenue Inter hasn’t played a round of 16 match in Champions League in over a decade so how much does inter need to invest just to make that happen ? both teams need to take care of their finances first before they can sell and in the case of Inter – try not to sell EVERYONE !
@Rosario, if Berlusconi had done due diligence, or if he’d sold for a little less to a more qualified buyer, we might not have been in this mess.