AC Milan have made an internal promotion to fill the role of sporting director with Antonio D’Ottavio taking the position, a report claims.
La Gazzetta dello Sport writes how after the farewell of Paolo Maldini and Ricky Massara, Milan had made it clear that they would not be making an external hire to fill the technical or sporting director roles.
Thus, Milan have reorganised themselves internally, with the transfer window passing through CEO Giorgio Furlani and chief scout Geoffrey Moncada.
However, the sporting director box remained to be filled, at least in bureaucratic terms. Now the name has emerged and it is Antonio D’Ottavio, the head scouting of the youth sector.
Who is D’Ottavio?
Born in 1982, D’Ottavio arrived at Milan in 2017 after working as a scout for Torino Sunderland and Inter. He is Moncada’s trusted right-hand man, with whom he will collaborate more closely now.
There is an important emphasis, however: D’Ottavio will become part of the team that operates in the mercato, but always within the collective which is sort of how most English clubs operate.
In other words, he will not be the figure of a classic sporting director who moves more or less independently to conduct negotiations and manage the budget.
The fact that the choice fell on a figure already present within the club – evidently appreciated – is the confirmation of the new Rossoneri model.
D’Ottavio arrived at Milan under the Chinese management of Li Yonghong and was then kept despite the subsequent change of ownership. He had obtained a federal diploma in sports management in April 2022.
So they are relizing that they can’t pull anyone
We are getting another scout as sporting director
Most sporting directors start as a scouts and then move up to higher positions
Is it just me, or does it seem like with every new day, the club makes a move that is more ridiculous than the one they just made? Are they consciously trying to alienate the fan base?
Sadly it appears to be typical American ownership model.
Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Marseilles, Man U, Leeds, Fiorentina, Genoa, Roma….just to name a few, all have American owners. The average NFL team is worth three times the average EPL club despite having a fraction of the fan base. While you may find a longer history in sport in Europe and Asia, nobody does the business of sports better than Americans. It’s offensive to continue to contribute what you see as bad moves by the club to the owners nationality. It’s gross. Stop.
Yeah, nothing to do with that that the US is the biggest market on the planet, over 50% of the whole world. That is why they are valued, there are more people with money to spend on different things including merchandise, sausages at the stadium etc. You can’t change that by having an US owner, the club will still be in Italy. So what you wrote is not really true. If you look at Man Utd they have been taking the money out of the club, that is why their fans have been asking for the US owners to leave. It will take you 5-7 years to understand why.
Dallas cowboys are the most valuable sports club on the planet with a fan base of 4,494,617. Compare that with the Barcelona’s which is 57.8 million. More than 10x the fans and still less valuable.
Basically, American sports teams pay out better relative to their revenues and worldwide popularity because they are designed first and foremost to be safe investment vehicles for billionaires, while top Soccer franchises actually compete with each other financially and uplift player salaries and lower league clubs in the process. To say that an American ownership model in any way shape or form is bad for the club in the long term one must have ones head firmly planted in the sand.
The Glazers have spent enormous sums on Man U. They have the second highest wage bill in the EPL. United can still spend big on players because it is a sprawling commercial enterprise for which the Glazers are partially responsible. Under their ownership, the club’s annual revenue more than doubled from roughly $305 million in 2004-05 to over $800 million in 2018-19, the last full season pre-pandemic. Since the start of the 2005-06 Premier League season, the Glazer family have invested £1.5 billion ($2.06 billion) in transfers at Old Trafford. The problem on the field is they haven’t spent WELL.
I get that fans don’t want their teams to be run as some sort of soulless corporation but that ignores the reality of the world we live in. Sports is big business. Economic power usually translates to sporting success, but not always. If RedBird walks away in 5-7 years, having doubled the clubs revenue and giving us the ability to spend more in the market to improve the stadium, squad, and overall fan experience, I’ll be quite happy with that. To each their own opinion, but let’s stop acting like this model is something new and abhorrent and not the status quo.
All true. Lots of kids on here who don’t understand business. Man U’s problem isn’t the Glazers but the fact that Sir Alex left a huge void which they haven’t been able to fill with mediocre managers like Moyes or Solksjaer. Even Mourinho is a shadow of his former self. Ten Haag might be able to bring them back.
As for Milan, the Italian billionaire sugar daddy days are long over and never coming back. Our problem is not the new ownership but Italian red tape blocking our new stadium and Serie A struggling to market itself worldwide properly. Until those problems are fixed, we won’t be able to return to the top echelon of Europe.
Americans don’t know soccer and see sports as a marketing tool. Period.
Mentality of owners matters more if you want to win cups.
Man united even cut the salary’s of players for extra drink they take between the training session sessions.
That’s crazy, for them it’s only business. They spent a lot of money, but do you know how much money they earn compared to other clubs.
They have biggest fan base in the world than even teams like real madrid.
You need culture not just money, when you can’t respect culture. the club will turn into psg/man united.
It’s upto you if you want to see Milan with PSG or winning cups in Italy/Europe.
You don’t need this kind of owners, if our team is playing in Europe /winning cups. Business will automatically increase.
3years ago we have 130m business now it’s 350m business.
When you remove the culture, large part of fan base will be lost until someone big icon of football comes and convinces the fans.
“nobody does the business of sports better than Americans”
BULL$HIT at it’s finest. The ONLY reason the clubs in usa are doing well financially is because the sheer value of sponsorships. They have turned their sports into franchises.. aka brands. All big brands are located in USA and the easiest way to gain exposure to US customers are sports events. American football, baseball, basketball, icehockey.. it’s all the same. The ONLY reason their valuation is so high is because they can attract sponsors/brands easily. Their earnings from the actual sport is worth less than a bag of popcorn. They earn all from the adverts and sponsors. Why those brands care about US customer base more than Europe and the rest of the world? because that’s the biggest marketplace on the planet.
Average pro sports club in USA earns 10x higher than ANY Italian clubs just from sponsors. To say that Americans are some sort of business masterminds because of the availability of sponsors are absolutely wrong.
ManUs revenue hike was never because of Glazers. It was rising steadily every year anyway. It simply doesn’t matter if it was Glazers or a random hobo in charge of Manu, the revenue hike would be the SAME.
Seeing Americans as some sort of Messiah just because of their nationality means you have NO Idea how businesses work or what’s the intricacies of business. Listen to your own words. It’s GROSS. STOP.