AC Milan owner Gerry Cardinale has pledged to bring AC Milan ‘back to the world stage’ ahead of the Rossoneri’s USA pre-season tour which commences very soon.
Cardinale spoke to CNBC (via Milan News) about what he wants for the club going forward in a global manner and it led him to reference the importance of a player like Christian Pulisic.
Milan are going to be playing three very high-profile friendlies in the United States over the coming weeks, with Manchester City, Real Madrid, and Barcelona being the opponents.
It is a major event for the millions of fans in America that follow Milan as closely as they can from a distance, as they get a rare opportunity to see the players in the flesh.
As Cardinale explained, the huge demand in America is why the club has gone there this summer.
“Part of the reason why we have committed to doing these friendly tours in the United States is just a huge demand from America for European football. So this is a really important opportunity for us. We have owned Milan for two years. Our goal is to bring it back to the world stage. We have 550 million fans worldwide. We have 50 million fans in America and we want to focus on them,” Cardinale explained.
With much of the chat focused on how Major League Soccer could improve if there was no salary cap, Cardinale used Pulisic as an example of a player who was produced in the American system and shows the positives of it, but is now plying his trade in Europe with a huge club like Milan.
“Most players go to the European system where there is no salary cap, you play with different rules, there is a transfer market, there are relegations. It’s a very different ecosystem. In Europe, there has been a kind of ‘arms race’, especially for talent and players. And that’s why we see sovereign wealth funds, corporations and institutions investing in European football. It is also coming to the United States, but there is still much to be done to attract, on a more consistent basis, players in their prime,” Cardinale said, as someone closely involved with Milan’s transfers.
“At AC Milan, ironically, one of our most iconic and popular players is Christian Pulisic, who is often called Captain America and has done a phenomenal job here. So it goes both ways. The fact that Christian has come out of the American system and is able to play at the level he did in Europe and now with AC Milan is a testament to what the US is doing. But there are other ways.”