Home » Di Marzio provides bleak Leao update: “Milan have never given that amount to anyone”
AC Milan's Portuguese forward Rafael Leao

Di Marzio provides bleak Leao update: “Milan have never given that amount to anyone”

Rafael Leao’s requests to renew are high and it seems AC Milan are currently not willing to meet them, which has very much complicated the negotiations over an extension.

Gianluca Di Marzio spoke on Sky (via MilanNews) prior to Milan’s game against Spezia at San Siro tonight to give a rather bleak update on how talks are going over the extension of the Portuguese winger’s deal.


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“It is a difficult renewal because there is not only an issue relating to the change of agent, which clearly has changed the cards a bit. When changing agent, the club always has to start over,” he began.

“There is this annoying question of the 19 million euros to be given to Sporting CP, very irritating for the player, it is clear that the economic demand is very high, because through what more he earns he hopes to be able to pay off the debt to Sporting.

“Is this renewal at risk? Well it is not obvious, it is not certain, because if the player thinks he will earn 9-10 million euros a year, Milan have never given that amount to anyone. Milan have always been on figures of 6, 6 and a half, maximum 7 for any player, from Donnarumma to Calhanoglu to Kessie.

“Then if Milan decide to make the effort and give him 10 million Leao renews tomorrow morning, but I don’t think they want to break away from a rule that has always been a rule of firmness and principle. I believe that no one in Italy today can give 10 million net to a player.”

TMW report that Chelsea and Manchester City are both waiting at the window ahead of the January window and could launch offers worth €120m to test Milan’s resolve. They also reported that it would cost Milan close to a €100m financial commitment in order to keep him.

Leão has has 15 goal contributions in 17 games across all competitions this season making him the main threat in Milan’s attacking department.

Tags AC Milan Rafael Leao

12 Comments

  1. Then we have no intention of becoming a big club again…sad. Remember with Leao we have the benefit of the “growth decree” – so if I am not mistaken a 7M salary is approximately cut in half. So there is no excuse of not paying Leao. You didn’t sell your best asset BEFORE he’s in his prime and BEFORE giving this core group of players a chance to do something special in CL and dominate the league. Would send a horrible message to the fans and existing and new players that Milan are a selling club. Horrible IMO. 7M – Rabiot makes that $$$ lol. So pls don’t say 7M is a huge amount and no one gets it. He’s the MVP and gets better by the day. Protect your investment. Like my friend above said we gave Ibra 7M so this is all BS. Give him 7M and pay the fine and be done with it

    1. Untrue. Rabiot doesnt play for Milan and Juve is deep, deep, deep, deep in the red ‘cuz they spend like crazy. A place where Milan doesnt want to be.. So there is that..

    2. That’s the point-you’re mistaken.

      The growth decree doesn’t reduce the salary – it reduce the tax paid of the said salary.
      So if Leao is to be given a new contract of €7m right now, the amount paid would be €7m salary And €4-5m tax, totaling ~€11m Per Year. That figure will grow up in the season after since the growth decree advantages will decrease as the year goes until finally Milan will paid him €14m per year (€7m salary + €7m tax). Add the fine, which is nowhere Milan’s fine at that, the money Milan paid for Leao would be near €20m next season – that’s huge hole to the finances.

    3. “Then we have no intention of becoming a big club again…”

      And once again Juro with his usual BS.

      ” Remember with Leao we have the benefit of the “growth decree” – so if I am not mistaken a 7M salary is approximately cut in half.”

      LOL. One more proof you are so f*n clueless. If his salary is 7M€ / year, the taxes are ADDED to that amount, not deducted FFS! If he asks for 7M€, Milan will have to pay over 10M€. Simple maths really but you’ve already proven many times before that you think 0 is better than let’s say 60 or 80M.

      Rabbiot can earn what ever he earns where he plays. If Juve wants to overpay their men, go ahead. The F* do I care?

      1. So Leao at 7M is an “overpay” LOL. Your a fkn idiot @bb. Apologies to the rest for my misunderstanding of the growth decree – but Regardless we do save $$ (taxes) with the growth decree so no excuse to not pay Leao. Again, we don’t have to keep him forever. You sign then of needed you sell. Your the jackA$$ @bb that said we should sell him for 40M!! Hahahahaha. What a loser. Stick counting all those goals your scores in the Co-Ed church league you dip$hit. We are going to turn into Juve if we pay Leao 7M/season? Hmmm….funny that didn’t happened when we paid Ibra. So ya there’s that. The point is if we sell him now BEFORE he’s hit his prime and before this core group starts to compete consistently with Europes best – then we have no intention of becoming a big club again. Maldini said as much. Not just me. So go crawl back down momma’s basement and polish off those trophies your allegedly won for scoring all those goals against the ladies team at the local YMCA.

    4. If we keep losing our best players like Leao before the team has reached the summit in Europe again, the Rossoneri will always stay a work-in-progress and never become the finished product. Is this to be the fate henceforth of the once-great AC Milan, the aristocrats of football? The severe financial shortfall that has created this problem must be solved in other ways: (1) build the new stadium as soon as possible and don’t let the approval and construction process drag on indefinitely; (2) take full advantage of our brand’s global commercial potential and attract bigger and better sponsors and investors; and (3) spearhead the project to establish a multi-divisional, merit-based European League that will generate much more lucrative broadcasting revenues for continental clubs; and leave Serie A to compete in it. National leagues in Europe have become economically obsolete; to eliminate the growing financial chasm between continental and EPL clubs, Europe must unite. This bull must be grabbed by the horns without any further delay. AC Milan’s future turns on it.

      1. All that sounds nice in theory but it’s not easy to put in practice.
        – Milan has been trying to build a stadium for about 10 years now, remember Barbara’s 40k capacity stadium? And even if they break ground tomorrow, Milan’s new stadium won’t be opened before 2030.
        -Bigger and better sponsors will come only with on the field success in Europe, not just in 4th tier league as serie A .
        – Super league had been in works for about 20 years now and it was spearheaded by Milan and Berlusconi, but without the other big European clubs Milan can’t do anything on it’s own.
        And finally selling Leao might be the best thing that can happen to Milan. Remember Liverpool and Coutinho? Once they sold Coutinho they started building this team and the success came. They got better with the money they got from the sale of their best player.

        1. – Tottenham Hotspur’s new stadium (which stands on the site of its old stadium) in London took only 3 years (2016-19) to build, Why will AC Milan’s new stadium take 7 years?
          – How are AC Milan expected to achieve on-the-field success in Europe and attract bigger and better sponsors if we’re currently playing in what you say is a “4th tier league” in Europe? We have to compete in a league where we regularly play against top clubs like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, and PSG, in order to generate bigger broadcasting revenues.
          – I’m not advocating the establishment of a Super League in which franchises are guaranteed a place in the competition. That idea is unmeritocratic and was heavily criticised in the UK. Rather, what I’m proposing is the creation of a 4-division European League in which clubs are promoted and demoted from one division to another at the end of each season according to merit. In other words, the system that currently exists in all national leagues.
          – Real Madrid President Florentino Perez remains very much in favour of establishing some kind of supra-national league in Europe. He claims the current model, with teams playing in national competitions, is economically unsustainable if continental clubs (with the exception of PSG, which is a parastatal) wish to stay competitive vis-a-vis EPL clubs. Coming from the head of Real Madrid – which still enjoys success at the highest level in Europe – that statement carries a lot of weight.
          – In the 80s and 90s, Serie A was called the “world league”, because it attracted the best players. But from about 2005 onwards that title went to the EPL, which supplanted Serie A by securing more lucrative broadcasting deals that projected the EPL globally. Serie A never sold itself effectively to the the world, which is why the EPL was able to take over. It’s too late now for Serie A to recover its former Numero Uno position; that horse has left the barn. But Italian (and other continental clubs) can, in my opinion, compete with EPL clubs if they leave their national leagues and join a European League. Such a league will capture the interest of advertisers, sponsors, and investors around the world and be more than a match economically for the EPL.
          – Liverpool was already playing in the best and financially strongest league in the world when it sold Coutinho, which meant it was able to use the proceeds of that sale to attract very good, proven players. AC Milan, which is playing in Europe’s 4th tier, won’t be able to attract the best players with the money from a Leao sale – only young talent which we’ll no doubt nurture and turn into stars and then be forced to sell because we won’t be able to pay their wage demands. In other words, we’ll end up in the same position as we’re in now with Leao (and were recently with Donnarumma and Kessie).
          – AC Milan can’t break out of this vicious loop until it attracts super-wealthy investors (like PSG did) or competes in a European League that generates far greater broadcasting revenues.

          1. Milan’s new stadium will take AT LEAST 7 years to build because of the bureaucracy in Italy. Don’t you see how long it takes for the city of Milano just to approve the site of the new stadium. Even new Milan owner Cardinale said that the last new stadium built in Italy was Juventus stadium which opened in 2012. So in 10 years no new stadium was built in all of Italy.

  2. So Leao now is asking for 9-10 million.
    Sell immediately.
    Enough prolonging, enough agent change, enough waiting on his court case. Sell him before his price drop because of his contract,or he leaves for free.
    Learn from your mistakes for once Paolo

  3. We can not give him 10 millions: how would everybody else in the squad feel like? How would the board will look like in the eyes of the rest of his teammates? Will we discuss from scratch all the rest contracts of them?
    Apart from all the other obvious reasons.

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