Footmercato: Maldini sacking and Cardinale’s radical vision have Milan in ‘thick fog’

A rather interesting report has emerged from France explaining Gerry Cardinale’s plan to revolutionise the way that AC Milan operate.

Footmercato write how Milan are struggling to move forward in its summer transfer window after the sacking of Maldini, which came after his relationship with Cardinale was ‘poisoned’ due to various factors.

The RedBird Capital founder and number one decided to revamp the sporting direction of the club by also getting rid of his right-hand man Ricky Massara, trusting Giorgio Furlani and Geoffrey Moncada.

Apart from the contract extension of Rafael Leão, pretty much sealed by Maldini before his dismissal, Milan are treading water this summer. The U-turn has meant that the Rossoneri have fallen behind their direct competitors.

As per the source, Maldini was even on the way to beating the competition for the signing of Italian talent Tommaso Baldanzi and had also taken a big step to complete the arrival of Domenico Berardi.

The two directors being sacked had a ‘real shock wave’ effect in the offices at Milan and in the regional press which follows the club on a daily basis.

Cardinale has expressed his desire to establish an American sporting culture by investing more in marketing, infrastructure and technology, both sporting and medical, to revolutionise the club.

He wants to follow ‘an NBA model’ and intends to rely on several American experts, in particular Billy Beane (former baseball player and manager) and Luke Bornn (creator of Zelus Analytics), by using data analysis and advanced statistics as much as possible.

The objective is thus to perpetuate the finances of the Rossoneri, by betting on a lower-risk economy during the transfer windows with a sort of imposed salary cap, hence the separation with Maldini who spent more than €50m last summer without much success.

This change of course is of great concern to some members of the sports management, including Furlani and Moncada, who prefer to use more traditional means in negotiations and the development of targets.

Milan are moving forward in ‘thick fog’ since the clash between Paolo Maldini and Gerry Cardinale. The weight that the Italian legend had with agents, players, clubs and other institutions seems to have been largely underestimated by the American owner.

Tags AC Milan

59 Comments

  1. Yeah according to this, even Moncada and Furlani will get sacked.

    But it will get everyone here raging again for no reason. who the fk is footmercato.

    1. Perhaps this article is nonsense.

      But if it has even a grain of truth, then we’re f*cked as the problem is Cardinale, ie the one figure who can’t be sacked.

      His focus on turning us into a feeder club is the wrong one for our fanbase. I think he would likely have been seen in a positive light at somewhere like Atalanta.

      Even though another US owner Boehly, has appeared clueless at Chelsea, at least he spends. It might be under RedBird we go back to the banter era 😲

      1. Whatever people talk about Chelsea. They purchased top talents that you probably don’t even know along with the best players they could get. Their team is so strong and with the right coach they will be back to the top with those players. And they can finance it by selling players that were bad like Pulisic. But they can sell him for 20M and he was paid 67M. That is why they can sell players. One of the things that is often written is that M&M didn’t give Milan any resale value like other clubs. Well, you can’t resell a guy you purchased for 5M to cover a position because that was the only player you could afford and resell him and make money. Whoever writes something like that in an article is beyond stupid, especially considering the value of Theo, Mike etc. The players they were allowed to spend money on are valued, 2, 3 or10 times more.

        Milan is currently more Atalanta than Atalanta. They refused a big offer of Hojlund and said 100M or nothing.

          1. Chelsea hasnt won the league for 6 years, infact they havent even finished 2nd since then so wasnt even close.

            You want Milan to spend 600m to finish 12th? Nice goal, you just want to play FIFA with Milan LOL

          2. What does winning the title in the last 6 or 600 seasons have to do with them spending big last summer and this summer again? Are you really that stupid? All the empty heads replied? 😀

      1. The fog will be cleared faster if Cardinale himself participate. Furlani’s background is banking/finance, Cardinale should have not asked him to convince player to join a sport project. Meanwhile, Cardinale is said to be experienced at sports project and making partnership with sports athletes, he should at least be better than Furlani. I think the player will appreciate it more at if it is the owner himself who try to convince them.

  2. His theory is working in NBA, NFL or MLB only because they have draft free players from college.
    Won’t work here in Europe .

  3. Maldini and Massara were at least honest. They were a family to these young players. Seeing snakes like Furlani tapping players on their shoulders with his fake smile and sweet words just to sell them to the highest bidder the next day, makes me wanna throw up. It doesn’t matter who we sign wether is Guler or Baldanzi or some other excited talent. They’ll just sell em for high profit in two or three seasons. Nothing to be excited about with this club anymore.

    1. You were so excited to lose 4 players on a free that were worth over 150m huh?

      You sound sad that Furlani convinced Leao to sign so Maldini couldnt do his usual plan of letting him go for free in 2024 LOL

      1. Look at this asshat. You think leao was waiting to get convinced by fuxking furlani because Maldini could not? Some people are so dense.

        1. Yeah it was literally reported he stepped in, your Faildini couldnt convince Enzo, Kolo Muani, Renato Sanches and in previous years Dollarumma Kessie Hakan Romagnoli all bailed,

          HE ISNT MAGIC

          1. Pathetic to say the least!

            Donnarumma only listened to the money grabbing snake that was Mino.

            Kessie clearly wanted more money which we could not afford, same goes for Hakan not that he was a factor anyway.

          2. maldini failed because he hasn’t been given the proper budget to sign or renew those players.. do you think with cheapskate gerry budget any player will come to milan? even after the sale of tonali they can’t compete with marotta for thuram..
            we’ll see what these furlani and moncada can do this mercato..

      2. Go look at the Thuram deal, they let him go to Inter for a difference in 500k a year. The people they have in place with analytic models are the ones getting the last words. They let our players go for nothing hoping they would accept low ball offers until the last minute, not going over their comouter generated amounts.

        Furliani handed 20 million away probably by giving that amount to Sporting in order to have the signing go through because he got the okay from owners. We didn’t have to so that. It was Lille’s problen. We lowballed them for Maignan and Leao so they gave that 20 million our our goodwill. Maldini isn’t in the finance department so they don’t listen to him, it isn’t his job to settle financial disputes or legal ones, the money calls go through the money cruncher who licks the owner’s butt, they trust him more than Maldini. That extra money for resigning, they will get back by selling Leo in 2 or 3 years. They let Tonali go when he was our best midfielder available. No replacement lined up.

        Now we are f*cked down the middle, still didn’t replace Kessie, nor Bennacer or Tonali, with a 100 million euro budget, plus a striker to get, it won’t happen.

        1. yeah Faildini would’ve gotten Thuram done for sure according to you

          anything Faildini does is gold because logic

          You love freaking Chelsea and EPL so much yet pretend to be a Milan fan, bloody pathetic

          1. I am a Milan fan and I am fed up of you always referring to our legend as faildini. You talk rubbish so you shut up. You love this new management and they have no idea of the beautiful tradition that ac Milan should hold and represent.

          2. Well said. Guys, get used to this type of business model. Buy on the cheap expecting a 2-3 year turnaround on the initial investment and expect to gain a 40-60% profit. There is a lot of Saudi owners out there willing to overspend

      3. If Milan sold any of those players for money at the time, and knowing Pioli needs 2 or more seasons to finally get any new players to properly function in his system, we would have remained mid table ffs. Imagine selling Kessie instead of him running down his contract, we wouldn’t have won the scudetto that year.

      4. So what should Maldini has done?
        To give the kebab 5 mil? to give Kessie 10 mil (like his agent asked in the end)? to give Romagnoli 3 mil when we knew he won’t be first squad player? To give Donarumma 12????
        They all gave made their contribution to our comeback to UCL and some of them to the title (without Kessie it wouldn’t happen). So to get rid of them before would be a mistake.
        The problem is their greedy agents (I really hope Kessie will fire his one after he ruined his carrier)

    1. Realistic is not negative. Cardinale won’t spend money botomline. Any idiot can sit as president or CEO and say I will not spend more money than I make. In football if you are going to be a winner you have to spend a lot before you make anything, any money. That may take a years. With this policy Milan will be outside of Champions league spots for long time. Next season I see them behind Napoli, Juve, Lazio Roma and Inter for sure.

      1. its not realistic. and no you dont need to spend big to win. Milan won not that long ago. How much did they spend?

  4. So cardinale thinks NBA MLB system can work in football right? It’s not rugby cardinale it’s as you Americans say soccer it’s totally different sport. Nowadays if you don’t put money on the team for players you can’t win anything. If you had gave 100m to m&m the options would be different m&m wouldn’t be that stupid to spent it only in 2 or 3 players but more to try close the gap. But you chose cheap but now you continue the same path cheap players more money on advertising and grow the “brand” this isn’t a clothing company to say it’s okay they will buy the clothes. If the team doesn’t win anything or doesn’t be / feel competitive then the fans will stop buying jerseys and tickets so your sorry dreams for new stadium it will rot the team into a deep debt

    1. Brand isn’t going to grow itself if the team doesn’t win. Every brand wants an image of a winning side to expand their brand value being correlated with a winning team. If that doesn’t happen, Gerry himself might bang his head on the wall. He is sitting on a throne of thorns, he might not feel the pain yet but it is going to hurt him real bad further. Let’s see what he does l, but it’s actually a tight noise round his neck right now.

      1. Whatever people say, PSG is a great example. Their brand is worth almost 4 times more compared to Milan. And they are in a weaker league with less money from TV rights and all the standard “reasons” for why Milan is where it is. Their sporting success (yes, they win the title every year, before that they had 2 in their history) allowed them to sign Neymar, Messi etc. If they were bad nobody would join. That is the whole idea.

        1. PSG brand has little to do with football but rather the ‘Jordan’ brand which is the world’s biggest and you will find most of those wearing it couldn’t name 3 PSG even with Messi and Neymar

        2. PSG and City signed huge sponsorship deals with companies that are indirectly in ownership of their owners. Get your facts right.

  5. Zio Gerry most likely has NO/ ZERO clue how European football works, not to mention running a top football club; little understanding of ACMs stature, heritage, objectives, expectations etc.
    Steering the ship in the wrong direction; so far out Maldini, Masara, Tonali, failing to sign in Ndicka and Thuram two supposedly main targets on a free transfer.
    The next scapegoat on his list is Pioli; depending on how this mercato ends up I fear he won’t make Xmas ’24 with ACM outside top4 at the end of the season.
    But let’s wait and see and try to be optimistic despite those worrying signs….

  6. I don’t see how this is different to anything we see now across Europe ie marketing, infrastructure, technology, sporting and medical, to revolutionise the club. But I guess serie a falls short esp on the infrastructure side. But clubs have been making strides in competitive advantages in areas as they see fit. There are many clubs using data to scout players. Now if we were to buy some unknown from the Tonali money then sure we’ll have to say that’s the work of stats and analytics by Moncada and we’ll have to see how they pan out. But to buy sms, Frattesi or Thuram,Ndka or other freebies you don’t need analytics for that. The advantage comes when you buy the names no one is looking at for cheap

  7. This article 100% spot on – I have been saying the same thing. Relationships matter when negotiating and Furlani has none unlike Maldini. So ya it matters as we are seeing. Can’t close a deal thus far and didn’t even know Marott was stealing Thuram right from under his nose after 3 weeks of negotiating. Terrible and just shows how INEXPERIENCED this lot is. We should hire an experienced sporting director with ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIPS but nah let’s wing it with Pioli making calls lol. It’s going swimmingly.

    I’m confused. We’re we not already doing “money ball” even with M&M???

    Kalulu bought for 500k now worth 20-30M
    Leao 28m now worth 90-100M
    Theo 20M now worth 80-100M
    Mike 13M now worth 60-70M
    Thiaw 6M now worth 25M
    Benny 15M now worth 30M
    Tonali 25M sold for 70M plus???

    I can go on…

    So we have been buying young cheaper mostly unknown talent and developing them. That is money ball and it was working. Yes there will always be some misses – impossible even for an algorithm to always be right.

    So why the need for change??? Oh I know – Gerry doesn’t want to spend $$$ – has to pay that fat 600M loan back to papa Elliot

    And for the clowns that cite Chelsea’s failure this year – LOL – nice cherry picking – check back next season when they are likely top 6 again fighting for UCL with all the talent they have. I’d rather be in Chelsea’s shoes any day do the week than the fkn mess we are in.

  8. This arrogant and greedy Gerry Clowndinale it will destroy all the good work done at the club over the last few years. The natural and necessary reaction of supporters is to boycott season tickets ! This american opportunist must be forced by the supporters to sell the club to another serious and well-intentioned owner.

  9. Just critically analyse what is being said and what has been done.

    He wants to do US marketing, probably have dumbarse pyrotechnics and other gimmicks that are not required for sports that have rich cultural traditions and heritage. Has he not been to San Siro?

    First point, what does that have to do with Maldini?

    He wants to bring in data analytics. He’s promoted the chief scout. All indications are that we are chasing all of the same players (who are turning us down now because Maldini is gone).

    Second point, nothing has actually changed.

    What is becoming quite clear is that we don’t have the clout to get deals done and so far have only managed to sell the soul of the club for a net return of 30m (assuming we spend 40m on a replacement of sorts).

    Third point, Cardinale is like most of these people. Tendencies toward being a sociopath and/or psychopath is what gets them to the top of a hedge fund. They’re not entrepreneurs. They’re (very successful) pencil pushers whose egos are matched only by their insecurity. So he’s doing the one thing he knows how to do, dividing and conquering, surrounding himself with yes men and idiot consultants to justify selling assets and slahing costs.

    1. Bingo on all 3 points. There’s nothing really has changed. We’re just less convincing in our direction and with less weight to convince players to come to us for less pay..ie Maldini. Cardinale has grossly underestimated what M&M did. They convinced world class players to take pay cuts to either stay or come to AC Milan just because of the history of the club and that there is the history currently present at the club. With that now gone, I was hoping the analytics would have been suggesting some unknown kid and us being the first to sign him. But so far it’s been the same targets as when M&M were here as you’ve said..smh 🤦‍♂️

  10. Who the f@ck does this moneyball turd think he is to come into a club with the stature and history in the world that Milan has, and decide to reinvent it.

    Take your dirty money and Mr Bean back across the ocean. He’s as thick as pig sh!t if he can’t see where this is going.

    It’s really very simple…with Maldini, yea CDK didn’t pay off right away, but if he was going for Berardi, SMS and Baldazini we know these are top players with experience in Serie A…this moron doesn’t understand anything beyond linear baseball which isn’t culturally driven or a team sport. Bergkamp sucked in Italy but was magnificent in the prem, likewise, Veron sucked in the prem but was excellent in Serie A…baseball isn’t a global game it’s North American. A player going from the German league to Italy isn’t a guaranteed success regardless of his statistics. There are cultural differences L, language barriers and the simple fact that the game is played different. Think about Ian Rush when he went to Juventus. Mr moneyball’s head would explode with that one

    I was having an interesting chat with a mate who’s a Liverpool fan and he agrees it’s a nonsense this moneyball. I mean if they were to lose Salah, you might be argue you could replace his goals over a season, but how about his assists, his in game influence, the fact that Salah takes out two defenders as opposed to one when he’s double marked…there’s so many more variables in football other than a man standing on his own hitting runs….this turd is basically running an experiment with our club…

    1. 1000% correct. #cardinaleout. Unfortunately for us the fans, he will find out the hard way, when he starts bleeding money from lack of ticket sales and lack of sponsors. Such a shame. He ruined a great project that M&M, elliot put together. What a stubborn as$. Hope he goes bankrupt.

  11. Watching Milan since 87-88 when I was 15-16 years old and I miss Silvios time so much. Sucking Maldini is a such desaster that these dudes from US will feel it next season. Maldini had lots of misses but he had no money to spend so every miss hurts doube. Milan will not be able to atract any decent players this sommer market and I will add that the club has been seen as toxic in eyes of many players. So brace for very bed season next year and 6-7 place will be actually good placement for AC Milan.

  12. Furlani Moncada Cardinale a team of losers
    Milan as we know it is for ever finished
    AC Milan is over welcome to Redbird
    Maldini tried had the right ideas in place these guys were unwilling to invest so here we sit with nothing
    Frustrating to witness

  13. Gerry knows about as much about football as i know about brain surgery. I’ll puke if we sign Pulisic. The dude outside USMNT sucks. Plus he’s a bratty daddy’s boy. Chelsea will crack up if we’re stupid enough to pay 20 mil for that D-bag. God help my club! Please let Red Turd default on their loans. They did not understand who they were buying because we’re not an EPL team. Forza MilanMilan!

  14. These pieces of *** even took the stripes off our jerseys to make us unrecognizable… we don’t look like Milan… Maldini who is Milan is out, our new talisman who was supposed to stay until retirement is out. It’s like it’s all done on purpose to come in and remove anything familiar so RedTurd can come in and start their moneyball NBA NFL crap fresh… disgusting.

  15. Guys…. Let’s the assessment come after season’s rounds up…
    Believe in Cardinale and forget the past.

  16. Good day

    Maldini and Ricky they knew the problems in Milan and how to manage them .

    Milan it’s a big club which needs to be respected

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