AC Milan and Inter are reportedly attempting to co-operate with a San Siro plan, but the council have requested they hurry up.
As Corriere della Sera (via Milan News) write, as of yesterday, plans have not been submitted to the council – who are expecting a feasibility document as well as a purchase offer in the short future. However, it seems things are still a way away.
The reasoning for this is currently unclear, but Mayor Beppe Sala believes that the clubs are potentially stalling the idea – a frustration given previous assurances. Instead, it seems that evaluations are still continuing for the San Donato project, leading the council to ‘ask to stop it’.
Things must speed up soon, otherwise the council are ready to pull the plug on a deal if delays continue. Should this happen, another plan will be presented to the City for a different buyer, which is not a positive thing for either club.
Ultimately, this is just the latest in a heavily extended, and tedious, back and forth which seems like it will continue despite the reported ending of the San Donato pursuit. As we’ve seen in the past though, it’s never simple when it comes to the two clubs and their futures involving (or not involving) San Siro.
Ditch inter.
Sell the club to new rich people and bring back some proper planning to get back to the top, then also build a new big stadium for 95 000 so the tourists can occupy some seats but still have a loudness in our stadium.
I don’t get it…..
San Siro rennovation: NO. We’re going elsewhere.
San Donato: got the land, cleared it, walled it off…
and nothing….
Investigation starts: Who own’s Milan…
Back to San Siro: Buy & Renovate…
Back to San Siro again: Build next to it…
What the eff is the actual plan????
no plan? RedBird doesn’t have the money or investors to build. Maybe a sale even in the horizon?
Or maybe this whole time Elliott had hired RedBird to run the club until they find another buyer and the whole 1.2bil purchase was just smoke and Elliott still actually owns Milan and has no interest in building a stadium?
Do you still have doubts about who owns Milan? It’s RedBird. Elliott extended to RedBird a vendor’s loan which is common practice between corporations. The investigation into it was a baseless witch hunt by an Interista prosecutor and has already been dismissed.
Gerry has recently refinanced the vendor’s loan, paying back 150 Million Euro to Elliott from his own money, and pushing the deadline for repayment to June of 2028.
Getting the land in San Donato means nothing. It can be resold (and there are two corporations currently interest in purchasing it from Milan if our project there doesn’t proceed). It’s similar to 2021 when the club purchased the Casa Milan building from Vittoria Assicurazione but then sold it out again to another corporation, Inarcassa RE Fund in 2022, less than one year after the purchase, and got back to paying rent for the building.
Will we build our own stadium in San Donato? I strongly doubt it. We can’t afford it, and I see it as just a smoke screen to pressure the City of Milano regarding the sale of San Siro.
Our best bet is to purchase San Siro with Inter.
Redbird (and Oaktree for that matter) is an investment fund. To spend money it needs permission by the board. Maybe the board members can’t reach an agreement on which path is the best to follow? Or maybe Gerry is following the “art of the deal”, to get a lower price to buy the stadium? Many things might be going on behind the scenes.
The price to buy the stadium has already been set. I don’t think the City will restart the process for resetting the price. It is what it is. Now it remains to be seen if RedBird and Oaktree will be willing to pay up. You have a point that maybe the boards of the two corporations are not yet completely sold to the idea that these clubs should own their stadium.
I hope they do because I see no other alternative. I think the San Donato project is a mirage. Most likely Inter’s project is a mirage too, and the only viable plan is for both clubs to get together and purchase San Siro from the City.
Oaktree might even be seeking to sell Inter in the not-so-distant future. They might want to just buy San Siro so they can tell buyers the club has a stadium (well, half of it). Who knows what is behind these investment funds’ thinking.
All in all, I agree that buying the stadium at this point is better than trying to build one elsewhere, be it as San Donato or another place. There are funding, red tape and infrastructure issues at play.
I find it quite incredible when people regularly say stuff like “sell the club to new rich people” or “kick out RedBird.”
Do you actually understand who owns who? RedBird and Gerry Cardinale are not club employees. They are the actual owners of the club. The club can’t kick them out. They are the bosses.
So, only Gerry Cardinale can decide to sell the club and the club itself can do nothing about it. However, just the opposite, Cardinale has refinanced the purchase until June of 2028. So we’re stuck with him until then, at which point we’ll see; he may or may not default on loan payments and may allow or not allow the club to be repossessed by Elliott. But it’s strictly his decision, not the club’s.
He also may or may not sell the club to investors other than Elliott. Again, it’s exclusively his decision, and the latest he talked about it, he said he is not selling and is not going anywhere. The fact that he recently advanced to Elliott 150 Million Euro of his own money to refinance the vendor’s loan, indicates that indeed he has no intention of getting rid of the club (otherwise he’d have done it already, instead of spending an additional 150 Million). He clearly sees the club as an asset that he wants to own for longer, in order to achieve a return on his investment.
As for building a stadium for 95,000 people on our own without sharing it with Inter, do you realize that the cost for a 70,000-seat stadium in San Donato is 1.5 Billion Euro? One for 95,000 people would be even more expensive. I find it really unlikely that Gerry will go for something like that.
That would entail committing to the club a very significant chunk of his fortune, and I just don’t see him doing that. It would be too risky for him and would eliminate the possibility of a mid-term return for his investment given that the construction would take 5 years and return of this huge investment would take more than a decade on top of that if not two decades; on top of construction, that would be 25 years. Do you really see Gerry going for that? Gerry who is 58 years old, would be 83 years old by the time he recovered his investment.
If we want to own our own stadium, it will necessarily be a shared project with Inter, to cut the cost in half. You say “ditch Inter.” Sure, but are you willing to come up with 1.5 billion Euro yourself, and donate it to the club to build a stadium without Inter?
Owning a stadium in Italy is not easy. Only Juve, Atalanta and Udinese have managed that, in Serie A. All other 17 clubs play in stadiums that are owned by their municipalities.
I will be pretty happy if we are able to purchase San Siro together with Inter. It surely beats the alternative of not owning anything and continuing to pay rent to the city. We wouldn’t slice in half the income we can get from the stadium because on MIlan game days 100% of the income would be ours. Only the income from concerts would be shared with Inter, but it’s not like if we built a stadium on our own, the number of concerts in the Milano area would double, allowing us to have the full income from that. We’d land some of the concerts and Inter would land some others. We’d still probably only have half of the concerts in the area. So sharing with Inter doesn’t really decrease our income but does decrease our costs.
The fact that the two clubs seem to be stalling regarding San Siro is actually very concerning. We may end up owning nothing if the city gets frustrated and sells to another group, because I really don’t think we can afford the San Donato project.
By the way, no, I do not like Gerry Cardinale or Red Bird. I think they have damaged the club, athletically speaking. Yes, I’d love to see them gone. But unlike people who engage in wishful thinking, I’m realistic and I know that saying stuff like “kick out RedBird” or “sell the club” is not realistic, given that RedBird can’t be kicked out; it’s the other way around; they can fire club staff; the club cannot fire them.
One thing I don’t understand, is the obsession with building a new stadium right away. Frankly, yes, San Siro is old, but I don’t think it is THAT outdated. I regularly attend games there both on regular seats and on VIP seats. The idea that there isn’t a sufficient set of VIP seats is one that for me is hard to understand given that I see the VIP experiences that Milan sells, as quite nice ones, with comfortable seats and nice food service, and the 1899 Club is always full of buyers. Sure, the VIP sectors could be even better and with more numerous seats, but it’s not HORRIBLE. It is still a functioning VIP sector with a large number of seats.
Certainly it’s desirable to have a more modern stadium and more VIP seats to generate more income, but again, it’s not like it’s a derelict stadium with no seats to sell to corporations willing to provide their clients with VIP experiences, and to individuals who want a nicer experience than a regular seat.
Also, it’s the largest stadium in Italy so a lot of revenue can be earned just from regular seats given that the full capacity is close to 80,000 seats. And it’s right next to the subway station.
I think if Inter and Milan purchased the stadium, they could perfectly delay the building of a new one and maybe just consider slowly reforming the stadium to make it more modern and to increase the offer of corporate seats.
I’d rather own half of San Siro and slowly reform it in a way that can be afforded, than not own a stadium at all and keep paying rent with limited income, and the idea of building a brand new stadium on our own, or even with Inter, does seem to me to be a bit unaffordable right now.
Milan and Inter owning the existing San Siro and the adjacent areas would already provide a significant income boost, and this money could be slowly applied into building savings that would enable the two clubs to either adequately reform San Siro to bring it more up to date to foreign stadiums, or to build a new stadium next to it. A new one doesn’t need to be built right away.
Why do people type up so much stuff online. Keep it short, Gerry please sell the club.