AC Milan owner Gerry Cardinale has outlined in detail why he is so determined to build a new stadium and why the idea of separating from Inter seems to be ‘instinct’.
It has been a red hot week in terms of developments on the new stadium front as Inter CEO Alessandro Antonello and Mayor Beppe Sala confirmed in interviews with the media that Milan have made it clear that they are exploring the idea of building a new stadium alone on the current site of La Maura hippodrome.
Milan and Inter announced their plans to build a new state of the art home together back in 2019 when Elliott Management were in charge, but now things seem to be heading more towards a solo project without the Nerazzurri.
Cardinale spoke on stage at the Business of Football event put on by the Financial Times last night and he was asked about the stadium project and the current situation with new stadiums in Italy, with his comments relayed by MilanNews.
“San Siro was first built in 1920. And it has been renovated over the years. I’m simply saying that there is an opportunity and if we want Milan to go back to being a world-class club, as I believe they deserve, we need to do it at 360 degrees. And part of that will be infrastructure,” he began.
“I always come back to say that I want to offer a value proposition to our fans, and it all feeds on itself. It’s all integrated. We’ll see if we can find the right opportunity. If we fail, we fail, but we have to work for the fans.
“It must work for the Municipality of Milan. It must work for the Lombardy Region. It has to work for Serie A and everyone has to have a say in something that is also a little unusual outside of the Italy, how to share the stadium with Inter.
“If you could choose, you would build it yourself, in order to be masters of yourself. We helped build Yankee Stadium and Dallas Cowboys Stadium, and the company we created then helped build SoFi. So we have real experience in that field and setting up various revenue streams in those stadiums. Thus, our instincts tell us that we can be independent.
“Nothing is out of the question. But as far as Inter is concerned, I know they are thinking about what their future will be. So all I can do is focus on ourselves. And then I’ll see what’s the best decision for us. Absolutely yes.”
Cardinale was also asked if building the stadium within the city limits of Milan – and thus avoiding a move to an area far from the city centre – was a priority for him and RedBird Capital.
“Yes, I think in a perfect world, yes,. The three components that I think we have a responsibility to our partners and to increase their involvement are the fans, the municipality of Milan and Serie A. And so if we can keep ourselves within the municipality, we will try to do it, but it has to work for everyone.
“There hasn’t been a new stadium, as I said, in Italy since 2011. I don’t know why. But I’m saying it doesn’t really matter. I’m interested in seeing if we can come in and make a positive impact, but it has to work for everyone.
“So we’re going to evaluate that very openly. We are not emotional, we have no pre-existing agenda. We’ll just try to figure out what’s the best opportunity for everyone, including ourselves.”
San siro was finished built in 1926
The visibility of Milan in North America since they took over has increased drastically that I can tell you for sure. I like this approach to building a new stadium. Let it be our own solely
So we owned the new stadium and inter have to rent it from us to use it?
I’d much rather prefer to go on our own than to split it with inter. Never really understood that but can both teams afford to do this on their own? Youd have to think this is a minimum billion dollar build. At this rate milans stadium will be built by 2050 and inter prob the year 3000.