RedBird Capital completed the purchase of AC Milan at the end of August and so far they have had a rather difficult start to their tenure, a report has outlined.
La Gazzetta dello Sport report that Gerry Cardinale should be back in Italy for the first leg of the Champions League round of 16 tie against Spurs next Tuesday, but the problem is that – if the team do not regain form quickly – he might witness a ‘slaughter’.
Milan are back in the knockout stages for the first time since 2013-14 which has seen €60m in revenues from the competition alone come into the accounts this season, which is added to the just over €40m from last season.
These revenues are much-needed to give extra momentum to the project, but the team currently sit in sixth place and it would be disastrous not to be a part of the top European club competition next season, with a lot of work undove.
Cardinale’s start to life at the helm of Milan has been complex with the team struggling on the field, but his nature is to wait until the end of the season to make important decisions, just as he does with other sporting ventures.
It is also worth noting that Cardinale does not personally govern the operations of the club, instead dictating the guidelines and then delegating them to his management whose work will then be evaluated in June, as well as that of the coach.
Speaking of the work to assess, Milan saw three of their four targets vanish in January as they are now out of the Scudetto race after a bad run of form, were eliminated in the Coppa Italia by 10-man Torino and lost the Supercoppa to Inter. What remains is to qualify for the Champions League, and right now Milan are sixth.
Cardinale is also carefully observing the evolution of the Rafael Leao question after giving approval to Paolo Maldini and Ricky Massara to formulate an offer of €6.5m net per season.
He will not go further than that, so if the negotiation ended unsuccessfully then it will be necessary to take precautions such as a potential sale to monetise from his exit and be able to fund a replacement.
Cardinale will never say a word on the choices of the management in terms of the players that they have signed, but if the €50m allocated for the last summer window look practically useless, someone will then have to answer for it.
Then there is the stadium. The RedBird chief has the construction of a stadium as his big vision, preferably alone – or rather without Inter – as president Paolo Scaroni clarified recently. The problem is that Milan are bogged down in this respect as well by typical bureaucracy.
The club are waiting for news on the possible constraints that apply to the current San Siro and despite the fact the public debate process is now over, we find ourselves once again in a phase of stalemate.
At least two other options are being considered by Cardinale and his collaborators including Sesto San Giovanni, a potential site that Gerry had already personally visited last year.
Source sempremilan.com
