Marco Samaja, the CEO of the Italian branch of the international investment bank Lazard, believes that PIF could try to buy AC Milan, Inter or Juventus.
The rumours of possible investment in Milan from the Middle East pop up every now and again, but they certainly intensified last year when raids on the offices at the club’s headquarters yielded details of a presentation to PIF.
It stated that PIF – who are Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund – have a net worth of $861bn and they have the objective of reaching $1trillion by the end of 2025 thanks to investments in various areas. Thus, they were looking at potentially acquiring a stake in Milan.
Samaja spoke at the ‘Merger & Acquisition Summit 2025’, a meeting in which – together with Inter president Beppe Marotta and Lega Serie A CEO Luigi De Siervo – many economic issues related to the world of Italian football were discussed at length.
Calciomercato.com relayed his comments, which began with an explanation as to why there has been such a rise in recent years in terms of American investment into Italian football.
“On the one hand, there is a soft aspect, which is the passion that Americans have in general for Italy, and the visibility aspect that owning a soccer team gives you,” he began
“From a financial point of view, what those who made these investments looked at was the possibility of optimising the sustainability that Dr. Marotta was talking about from a management point of view.
“The second thing is the issue of rights: if you look today at how much the rights of Italian soccer are worth, it is around a billion, those of the Premier League are 4 billion, those of the NBA have made an 11-year agreement for 77 billion dollars. These are crazy figures.
“When an American looks at our numbers, he sees potential, soccer is the most practiced sport in the world, why can’t we have higher numbers? This is a very important lever that pushed them.
“The third lever is the issue of stadiums: everyone hoped to optimize the management of the clubs through the stadium, unfortunately this didn’t work, due to bureaucracy. Compared to other countries, the processes are much, much longer, and this creates a disadvantage.
“When Berlusconi sold Milan or when Moratti sold Inter there were still many ‘bocchettoni’ [wealthy individuals who can own clubs alone], there were Russian oligarchs, there were the Chinese. Today unfortunately that world has become very rarefied.
“There are two open worlds, the Arab one, which however already has its own with PSG and Manchester City. Perhaps Bahrain is missing, which through Investcorp also looked at Inter.
“PIF bought Newcastle, but it is not a team with which you can exercise that soft power that the Saudis intend to exercise through sport. The Saudis change their points of view very quickly, at the moment they are more focused on ensuring that every partnership has a return on the territory.
“Given the relationship between our government and the Saudi one, I would not rule out that in the future PIF could go back to looking at teams like Inter, Milan or Juventus.”
Id rather milan get relegated 100 times before dealing with these radicals
Congratulations. You just won the dumbest comment of the day award!
So you don’t have any issue with taking money from a fascist regime that denies women and most people basic human rights, funds wars and genocides, promotes climate disinformation and is responsible for a large chunk of the world’s emissions/reliance on oil?
I think you are speaking about Italy or USA?
this..!! really is the most moronic comment I read so far..
“So you don’t have any issue with taking money from a fascist regime that denies women and most people basic human rights, funds wars and genocides, promotes climate disinformation and is responsible for a large chunk of the world’s emissions/reliance on oil?”
To be fair, this would apply to the current owner’s and PIF’s home country. 🙂
What are you truly still doing here.
Are como not hosting a get together or something.
WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE. AND WHY DO YOU CARE ABOUT WHAT HAPPENS TO MILAN AND WHAT KIND OF OWNERS IT GETS.
Stick to your own words and support como and stay away. Stop been a hypocrite. It’s a very very bad look.
Why doesn’t FIFA have an issue with Saudi Arabia, to which it has awarded the right to host the 2034 World Cup? Why didn’t the British authorities have a problem with PIF, which owns Newcastle? Why should ACM be held to a higher moral standard than these other entities? What’s good enough for them is surely good enough for ACM.
ACM needs an owner with truly deep pockets and real football knowledge to do justice to the club’s international following and its historical standing as a leading force in world football. I don’t care where such an owner hails from – Italy, US, Saudi Arabia – provided Redbird, which is economically out of its depth at ACM, vacates the picture.
The parsimonious, money-grubbing Redbird has even made a hash of the pittance it’s been willing to spend on new players. With a few exceptions, our squad is a mishmash of second- and third-rate players. This at a club whose roster in earlier times included stars like Rivera, Altafini, Schnellinger, van Basten, Gullit, Rijkaard, Baresi, Maldini, Costacurta, Tassotti, Kaka, Seedorf, Shevchenko, and Pirlo.
Like Real Madrid, ACM should be competing for CL honors every single year – not struggling to qualify for the Europa Conference League as we are this season. What Redbird has done to our once-great club is a disgrace.
I have no problem with an owner that wants to profit financially from its investment in ACM, as long as it also makes a serious effort to achieve sporting success – which Redbird has singularly failed to do. There must be a quid pro quo for the loyalty that supporters show the club.
PIF in! Redbird out!
Same way I too.
You want to profit from your financial investment in Milan, please do it’s business after all.
BUT AND A BIG BUT such an owner must care, invest heavily and wisely on the sporting side, and willing to respect the traditions and mores of Ac Milan.
Not whatsoever Redbird is doing.
Not a fan of Redbird, but would rather religate with them than be owned by a totalitarian state.
Anything is better than Redbird at this point…
Perhaps 🤔 it’s April fool joke….to give Milan fans false hope….
Anyone but Redbird, please..!
PIF already looked into buying Milan and Inter, and by their own words “Italy and Serie A are a mess” so they moved on to buy Newcastle. And it’s not like things have gotten better at all since then.
It’s also nonsense that PIF can’t exercise their soft power through Newcastle. ManCity prior to the takeover was a club on the same level as Newcastle. PSG also wasn’t some successful club in France or Europe.
That maybe truth but I’m hoping that it would be us because Banter Era 2.0 is starting and hoping we would be like Newcastle with some obvious plan not just spending randomly
The league doesn’t help make itself appealing to foreign investors to spend here and help elevate itself financially to get closer to the PL model.
No foreign investor wants to buys a club without its own stadium. And Italian bureaucracy makes it nearly impossible for clubs to build their own stadiums. In fact this league does very little to help its own cause, the streaming rights fiasco being another example of this…
I don’t blame the likes of PIF looking at PL because there’s a lot of money to be made there, in a league that helps the clubs grow and prosper.
It’s only exchanging one dictatorship for another. But PIF at least have money. Unlike broke a*s Americans.
I suggest maybe they will look to ac Milan. Inter already buy with Oaktree investment and Juventus under Agnelli family ( they won’t sell it ). The possibility was on ac milan who under RedBird still have a debt to be resolved.
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. PIF would be a godsend compared with the parsimonious, money-grubbing ownership that ACM currently has.
ACM is a sports brand supported by millions of fans around the world who have cherished memories of the club’s great achievements during the Berlusconi era. With substantial investment, which Redbird has shown it’s unable and unwilling to make, ACM can rise again to the top of world football, where, as 7-times Champions League/European Cup winners, it rightfully belongs. The club deserves nothing less.
Redbird’s ownership of ACM has been a travesty – a betrayal of the club’s loyal fanbase – which exploits for profit the latter’s emotional attachment to the Diavolo legend without making any serious effort to produce sporting success. There’s no reciprocity.
But let’s not be churlish. Redbird deserves some credit for its business model. It takes imagination and commercial acumen to radically restructure and downsize a prized football asset and turn it, at one and the same time, into a nursery for promising young players who are sold to wealthier clubs up the food chain, and a retirement village for aging stars and other rejects – and make money from that operation. Too bad if that means ACM wallows in mid-table mediocrity and struggles to even qualify for a place in the Europa Conference League. As far as Redbird is concerned, that’s a small price to pay.
PIF will deliver the investment ACM urgently needs, install competent managers, and return the club to its original mission of challenging the likes of Real Madrid, Liverpool, Bayern, Man City, and PSG for global supremacy.
PIF in! Redbird out!
redSh!t buzzer alert..!
PIF – PLEASE buy us.
Thank you
Modern football these day under Arabian money was psg, city, Newcastle. They are make some financial efforts to raise the club at sporting level. Ac milan was global branded so I think they can make some profitsnat money level and success at sporting level. That’s win win solutions