GdS: Milan accelerate for San Donato stadium site – the reasons it has been chosen

By Oliver Fisher -

AC Milan could celebrate their 130th birthday as a club not at San Siro but in the San Donato area of the city limits, according to a report.

According to today’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below), the club are increasingly determined to choose the San Francesco area in the Milanese ‘hinterland’, south-east of the city centre for their new stadium.

Building a new home is a major priority for ownership group RedBird Capital as has been reported many times. Milan have been evaluating various options for months and in recent weeks have narrowed the field of options.

It will not be the ‘Cathedral’ at San Siro, it will not be built at La Maura and it has come to a battle between Sesto San Giovanni and San Donato. Now the acceleration has come for the latter.

If you want to learn more about the area which is situated around 12km away from the Duomo in the centre of Milano, we did a special Substack piece weighing up the pros and cons of the site.

San Donato is favoured because of the possibility that everything can be agreed and constructed in time for an inauguration in 2028 or 2029, when Milan will celebrate its 130th birthday.

It would be the gate to the city, the first large building seen by those arriving in Milan by car from the south. San Donato pulled away from Sesto for a combination of reasons and it is not just timing-related.

Milan are negotiating with the owners of the area with the plan that the stadium would be built between the A1 motorway and the junction leading to the Tangenziale Est, two of the city’s main thoroughfares.

It is a bit like what happened in Munich with the Allianz Arena, built a few meters from the motorway. This is a very relevant detail for naming rights given the stadium would be passed by millions of motorists a month.

Allianz is a good example. Bayern’s ground is also passed by a lot of traffic and thus the company pay more to sponsor that stadium than Juve’s Allianz Stadium, which is not seen during the week except by the residents of Turin.

There would be direct access to a stadium in San Donato from the ring road and the possibility of reaching the stadium also by underground and railway, while higher development costs would have to be faced.

However, the merits evidently outweigh the defects, so much so that there are already three projects under evaluation. Milan hope to reach a definitive decision between June and July.

Tags AC Milan

16 Comments

  1. 2028? FFS, not soon enough! I thought the Sesto San Giovanni mayor said the new stadium could be in use in 18 months if Milan chose them.

    1. 18 months to start building not to completion.

      I think San Donato is the best option, compared to Bayern’s stadium, it is closer to city center (7 km vs 11 km).

  2. I have had enough with the new stadium location that has become a mirage of a thing for this Cardinale management;from where I stand I don’t trust this owner anymore as they had just used the symbol of Milan and dumped him cause the name Maldini echoes Milan.So if you don’t respect Maldini wishes for the club, which is a passionate one then you have no iota of respect for AC Milan period.

    Speaking of new stadium,is this Management not supposed to sort things with sporting aspect of this project first of all,before embarking on the mammoth project like the stadium construction cause left to me there has to be a competitive team and that will stay competitive for the next five years and that would sustain the vision of the Management and will also give them the leverage to be fully concentrated on building the suitable modern stadium that fit the glorious past of AC Milan.

    Anyways this summer would tell us AC Milan faithfuls what the Management have up their sleeves and will also tell if the sacking of AC Milan is justified but if not I hope Cardinale and his cohorts lose their grip on AC Milan and may it find her way into the grip of true ‘Red and Black’.

  3. Man o man, this is totally damage control by cardinale. After hiding behind his desk because of the maldini blunder today his media slaves are going at it full force. A bunch of articles how good he is for milan and he was not at fault with maldini. What a joke, totally lost his credibility.

  4. Milan came to San siro first. Never the less, 7- time champs deserve to stay at sansiro since it is the biggest stadium in Italy rhyming with our history. So inter should take over the project and leave San siro soon.

    1. “Inter should take over the project and leave San siro soon”

      Yea, so? They earn over €100m in stadium revenues? And we are left, with old San Siro?

      1. Build with €35m budget; which will be paid in seven installments, in seven seasons.. During this period, we will have €20m to spend in market and proceedings from sales.. Until the stadium is complete! Sounds great..🤫😄

  5. Sure. 2028? Berlusconi couldn’t do it before and this tiny pipi Cardinale will do it in 3 years? LOL Suuure buddy. he must think of us fans THAT Du_mb that we won’t see through the damagecontrol propaganda. Try again little Gerry!

  6. And yet again we go for the poor/cheap option.

    The Sesto San Giovanni area hosts a HUGE space for bigger stadium (capacity close to San Siro), parking, stores, cafe/restaurants etc, even for our training center and HQ to move there.

    On the other hand San Donato (unfortunatelly), is quite small regarding space, so forget all the above, not to mention that the Stadium will be of 45ish thousand seats of Capacity..

    Just mentioning that this year we had 72k average attendance…

    (so , guess which one is cheaper to fund…)

Comments are closed

Serie A Standings

Live football scores . Current table, fixtures & results.