AC Milan have an important Europa League game tomorrow against Slavia Praha, but all of the headlines at the moment surround more corporate matters.
La Gazzetta dello Sport this morning provided a comprehensive round-up of what we know so far regarding the investigation, while the brilliant Felice Raimondo picked apart the various cases that could be brought against Milan.
According to what is being reported by La Gazzetta, The the that filters through most frequently is ‘amazement’. Now it will be necessary to understand if the fund governed by Gerry Cardinale will release some official statement.
First Milan and then Elliott Management have already officially expressed themselves. The former underlined that “the the is third and unrelated to the ongoing proceedings relating to the acquisition of the same, completed in August 2022′, and that ‘it is providing full collaboration to the investigating authority’.
Elliott remarked that ‘this accusation is false. Milan was sold to RedBird on 31 August 2022. As of that date, Elliott no longer has any shareholding or control over AC Milan’.
In addition, as the news agencies report, ‘sources familiar with the situation point out that, as is common practice in private equity transactions, Elliott has provided RedBird with a vendor loan the terms of which allow Elliott to appoint up to two directors in the Board of Directors of AC Milan.
‘To date, Elliott has appointed only one director. Other than the vendor loan, Elliott has not provided any capital to RedBird and Elliott’s funds are not invested in RedBird’s funds’.
RedBird are reflecting on the accusatory apparatus brought forward by the Milan Prosecutor’s Office and what emerges, in fact, is amazement at the contents.
For example in the part where reference is made to the ‘AC Milan Investor Presentation’, i.e. an alleged presentation document of the Rossoneri club made available to potential Arab investors, in which it is however stated in black and white that RedBird holds 99.9 % of Milan.
Or regarding Elliott’s association with Lille, a French club in which – it is pointed out – Elliott never had any shares in, but had instead simply granted a loan to their old owner.
With regards to the fact Elliott kept involvement in the board at Milan, that is because they are protecting their position as a creditor after RedBird opted for a vendor loan from Elliott, instead of turning to an investment bank.
Finally, the top levels of RedBird are adamant that Elliott did not have and does not have shares in Milan (initially it seemed like this could be the case, but then the hypothesis waned) and, with a loan at around 7% interest, they will earn regardless.
For the moment, however, we remain in the field of reflections and deductions, waiting for the investigation to take its course and for RedBird’s amazement to transform into a real defence.
