Gerry Cardinale confirmed his intentions to create a company that builds stadiums during a recent interview. The project in San Donato, with AC Milan, will be the flagship to build on for future projects.
Cardinale has made it very clear that Milan have entered a phase of growth and a new stadium is certainly at the helm of that. Fortunately, RedBird have made great strides on that front with the stadium project in San Donato.
During his interview on the Bloomberg podcast The Deal, which you can also read in full, Gerry Cardinale spoke about Milan’s stadium plans. After suggesting it in a previous interview, he now confirmed his intentions to create a company to build more stadiums in Italy.
“It will be the first stadium built in Italy since 2011, an American-like stadium with 70,000 seats. We are going to bring music to Milan and build a live entertainment campus, which will be anchored by the team.
“You know, something like AC Milan, it’s interesting because we are going to need to find a way to crystallise value there. But, I mean, that [a stadium] is something that you should probably own forever. That is as iconic as it gets.
“We are going to build this new stadium, and when we are done building that stadium, I promise that we will have a company out of that to build other stadiums,” he stated.
With a new stadium, Milan will be collecting a lot more revenue each year and this will ultimately make the club a lot more competitive. Not to mention that this stadium will be very modern, which will be like night and day compared to San Siro (although the latter is iconic).
Well first build one, that one you promised. In this Italy full of unreasonable protestors and impossible bureaucrats everything big and new is categorized as “utopia”.
Don’t build for Inter
Oh I dunno… Maybe a 20k stadium in a middle of nowhere would suit them rather nicely.
“The transfer market and relegation, which are the fundamental pillars of economics in European football, are made for Money Ball. You buy low and sell high.’ So, we did a tutorial in European football”
Here’s your Gerry in his true colours.
That caught my attention as well. No question, the club will have moneyball strategy going forward. Tonali sale and the fact that maldini was sacrificed for his inability to negotiate deals with donnaruma, hakan and kessie, means that Gerry intends to sell players for profit, no doubt. He did mention that fans are now more content with his decision-making since compared to last year we have improved statistically. I hope he does not get in over his head, but expect major sale(s) this upcoming transfer window. I will mention that he seems like a very well educated professional, so for now I will give him the benefit of the doubt
” Gerry intends to sell players for profit, no doubt. ”
Good! Bloody hell time to do that as everyone does it (too).
It was very interesting to hear about his past success, and I’m very optimistic about Gerry’s vision of revolutionizing Milan to contend with the biggest clubs in the world. He didn’t just say, “Buy high, sell low.”
He also mentioned his philosophy about spending the incremental dollar better than the next team. He highlighted this, which I understood as him building a foundation for a winning system at Milan.
He also highlighted that investing in Fenway Sports helped him understand the ideas and beliefs that they have at Liverpool. I think Liverpool is one of the teams that spends that incremental dollar better than their rivals.
Overall, this interview was really good because I understood what he wants to do. He is smart, he is charismatic and I believe that he will push the team to the next level after the great job that Elliott did.
Just to be clear, 90% of the current football team owners are in it for making money.
I think the real question mark in time would be whether they’ll extract more value by playing like Atalanta or whether they’ll get more value by being at the top and selling players for even more money.
In other words, whether buying 2-3 Koopmeiners and sell them in 2-3 years for a 30-40 mill profit, or whether buying a Leao or Theo and sell in 5-7 years for a potential 80-100 mill profit. Depending on who they sell and why will tell us a lot of what their long term plans are…
I’m afraid that most players will be considered on their future potential rather than what they can contribute to the team at that point in time, which means that we won’t buy old players (no Kjaer, Ibra or Giroud going forward) , those players that are believed to have already peaked will be sold and that there will be a lot more impatience at nurturing and waiting for players to find their feet.
“Just to be clear, 90% of the current football team owners are in it for making money.”
You sure about that? That’s a rough way to be making money
He’s somehow contradicting himself. In some interviews he wants to win and doesn’t like to be second, wants to bring Milan back to its old glory etc.
And then he goes and say this on a podcast.
That’s my problem. Also, how you’re going to build longterm foundations for this team to be winning serially if you’re going to sell a star every season or so. With stadium? Ok, see you in 2040 when stadium is debt free and is generating enough for this club to be selfsufficient.
“Also, how you’re going to build longterm foundations for this team to be winning serially if you’re going to sell a star every season or so.”
Players don’t want to commit to one team for life anymore. It’s better to sell the people (even stars) who want to leave. Better do it for profit too.
If Milan (or Cardinale if you want to point the finger specifically at him) ends up selling e.g. Theo, they won’t sell him against his will. If the player really wants to stay, they’ll sign a contract that binds them to the team and will say “no thanks” to teams asking for his interests. It’s not 100% Cardinale who decides who gets to stay and who gets to be sold. It takes FOUR to tango (selling club, buying club, the player & his agent). Cardinale cannot decide that on his own.
Did he say the other stadiums will also be built in Italy?
Gerrymandering trying to do more for serie a than serie a themsleves