AC Milan are about to complete the painful but record-breaking sale of Sandro Tonali to Newcastle United, according to a report.
This morning’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) writes that Milan and Newcastle have almost closed the deal for Tonali, even though as of last night there were no final agreements on details and the green light from RedBird.
However, it is a downhill path now. Tonali will undergo medical tests today for Newcastle in Romania, where his agents Giuseppe Riso and Marianna Mecacci will be present to iron out the final contractual details.
The sale will mark the turning point of Milan’s summer mercato, as Newcastle will pay a sum close to €70m plus bonuses and Milan will net a percentage of the proceeds from a possible future resale.
It is a fee that will break records, given it will surpass the €67m Milan received for Kaka from Real Madrid which is still their highest ever sale, and it will also be more than the €70m Newcastle paid for Alexander Isak which is their most expensive purchase.
For Tonali a six-year contract worth €8m net per season plus bonuses is ready. Milan hosted the decisive stages of the negotiation yesterday at Palazzo Parigi, a hotel famous for having been the base of Fabio Paratici’s Juve.
Newcastle director Dan Ashworth and scout chief Steve Nickson were present and the Magpies sought to resolve the final details. Tonali’s yes has arrived as has Milan’s go-ahead, so now the Rossoneri have lost a potential future captain but Giorgio Furlani and Geoffrey Moncada have gained €70-80m with which to rebuild the squad.
Thus a June of sensational farewells is completed, which began with the retirement of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and then continued with the sackings of Paolo Maldini and Ricky Massara.
Ok guys, hear me out. Even though it’s a disaster that Tonali is gone, we got a pretty big budget to resolve some MAJOR errors in the squad. And if Kamada and Thuram rumors are true, they will be great 1st team additon without a penny spent. Now we’ll have close to 100M to get a 1st team RW, CM and some backups
And in my opinion its easier to replace Tonali than Maignan or Leao. So im optimistic
Yes I’m sad to see him go as I thought he’d become a club legend, bit like Gattuso would be the heart of our midfield for a decade.
Still, I predict he’ll be back, maybe in 5 years or so, when hopefully we’ve returned to the top of the sport and I’ll welcome him with open arms.
In the meantime, the key is the management use the money wisely and don’t penny pinch with Messias/Origi/Bakayoko 2.0
There’s no MAJOR errors in the squad that got to the semi-finals of the champions league and this attitude is the reason why we lost Tonali and will end up spending more signing replacements each transfer window for the next 10 years.
With all due respect, it’s too convenient to use last season’s CL as a measurement, and I think we got lucky reaching the CL semis. We played three knockout rounds. The first against a Tottenham who was perhaps the only club suffering a worse decline in form than us post-WC, that had a coach in mental crisis who would go on to basically abandon the club shortly after their CL elimination. Then we played a Napoli side who were head and shoulders better than anyone in Serie A and who displayed the same quality in the CL, yet somehow kept getting dominated by Pioli (but, if you rewatch the two CL legs you would see how many chances they had that they just didn’t put away) and then finally we played Inter, which inverse to Napoli was a club that we just couldn’t figure out how to beat (like practically any other club in a low block). If we’d been on the other side of the bracket we would have gone out in the round of 16.
Anyhow, knockout tournaments are such that every now and then an underdog can make a deep run, because in football even superior sides can lose games. The true measure is distance over time, and that would be Serie A, and in that case we went from 1st to 5th. Yes 5th, because that’s the truth in terms of wins/draws/losses. Simply put, we have deficiencies and they need to be addressed.
I’m sorry we’re not to use what happened a few weeks ago as a measure?
Instead we should speculate endlessly on who currently has the highest rating in FIFA and just keep signing players randomly and changing the squad chasing something that we’ve already actually achieved?
Tonali will become the most expensive Italian player/transfer ever. That’s how f*ed up the markets have become. Glad we’re the receiving party and not the one paying.
The funny thing is he wasn’t even at his best last season and SMS or Frattesi would certainly fill the void. The pain comes more from him being a diehard Milan fan his energy and the potential he has. Maybe he will be back some day. Good luck Sandro.
Lets be real we won’t regret losing Tonali if we get either
Agreed.
Best of luck Sandro. Thanks for everything you did for the club.
Good bye Sandro that is the sad thing about football been control by profit merchant.we all wish you well
one of the most heartbreaking transfer move by milan.
it was a wondurful few season of a bunch of young players who finally getting good growing together, it will be a wondurful ending if they are growing older and winning as many thropies as they can at milan. but it is what it is.
people here talk about this and that about redbird. hopefuly it will turn for the best.
we want milan be a champion again, at serie and champions league.
Forza milan !!
I hate modern football.
There is no winner to this deal.
People drooling over the transfer few moss the fact that Tonali is irreplaceable not because he had great ability but because he gave the team an identity that cannot be bought.
We’ll end up spending more money in the longer term. In the past 10 years we’ve had multiple Tonali’s including Cristante and Locatelli. Had we just held onto any of these that position would’ve been sorted and we could’ve strengthened elsewhere whilst maintaining an identity.
Instead the transfer merry-go-round continues.
It’s just so pointless. What’s the point in supporting a club when the players keep changing?
The club is the players. It’s not some fashion brand that brings out a new line every few months. Even Chanel sticks to the classics so it has an identity.
Nobody wins.
Unless Tonali can seriously up his game his transfer will end up a failure. If he loses his man like he did against Inter or hits aimless balls forward the Newcastle fans will lose patience over this ridiculously expensive signing.
Milan lose an icon. Newcastle don’t gain an icon. Tonali probably becomes an expensive flop.
“There is no winner to this deal.”
Milan, Newcastle, Tonali, Tonali’s agent. 4 winners at least. Maybe even Milan-fans & Newcastle-fans too.
Not for any actual footballing reasons.
What is the point of modern football clubs?
“What is the point of modern football clubs?”
What’s the meaning of life? Maybe it’s to enjoy the time we have. Or bitching about the owners of one’s favorite club every day. Depends on the view I guess. 🙂
How is this a response?
No one cares about that. I want Milan to be good, I don’t care about players like Tonali. If we can replace him with better, then who cares about loyalty and all that crap. This is the modern game for better or worse.
I mean you fall in love with milan, not the players. Players come and go but yet the love for milan stays steong(redbird is trying to ruin that).
What makes this deal so sad is that tonali more than his game itself loved milan, he confessed to wanting to stay for his entire career and he could have been a club legend. Unfortunately that lasted only 3 years.
Now tonali at Brescia had potential to become a world class player, at milan we didn’t see too much of that, whether it’s him or pioli who knows but he isn’t worth 80m. That’s what makes it too hard to pass up on. But like you said, it’s a lose lose situation because not many Italians succeed in England. The first mistake from tonali where he’s totly out of position or makes a horrible pass and the fans Will ridicule him right away.
In the end on paper, it’s unbelievable we sold tonali for 80m when I wouldn’t have thought he’d be worth 40m. But on the other we lost a true milanista and a piece of identity.
Bro the players are the club. When u think of Milan past what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Isn’t it Sheva, Gullit, Maldini, kaka and co? Or u thinking the San Siro, Galliani,….?
“What’s the point in supporting a club when the players keep changing?”
It has always been this way. Time of tottis and maldinis is looooong gone. Either accept it or stop following team sports and concentrate on individual sports like tennis, golf or even chess. 😀
Bb you are just a cardinale troll with so many different nicknames trying to make some damage control of your sugardaddy’s image infront of the fans…gtfo
Wow. You figured it out. Your IQ must be closer to 200, right?
Pretty cocky for a muppet (I give u that).Behind your keyboard you look pretty confident mocking all the fans that are against your sugardaddy,Cardinale the clown.In a face to face dispute Im pretty sure you would sht your panties.
Only tradors and clueless ignoramts will buy tickets and merch to sponsor these fraud of “investors”.Paolo was kicked out because he knew what they are planing with all the selling spree coming that’s why he made it public asking them to invest now in the team.That is why these bufoons took Maldini out,cause he was in their way,cause Paolo really caeed about his home and these clowns are thinking only about making some money.Cardinale is a fraud,red bird is a fraud!
Where is the 120M we received from UCL run???? Couldn’t that $$ be used to “fund transfers” as well? Or is it all going in Gerry’s pockets??? We are profitable now – so where is that $$$$??? Hmmm…
This is our new model. Small yearly transfer budget (30-35M) – and if we want more we have to sell a star player – like Tonali. Next is Mike, Theo or Leao. And the cycle continues. Just wait more SALES to come. We are now listening to offers for Theo – who is not so easily replaceable.
Brilliant PR SPIN by Redbird changing the narrative to make it SEEM arhat the ONLY way to “fund transfers” is to SELL core star players. Absolutely brilliant. Results don’t matter. Just selling stars to fund transfers? Sounds great.
But where did that 120M go??????
You’re talking about legends that gave us a lot and maybe that’s what made you fall in love with the club but at the end of the day, whether someone like she a was sold, Maldini retired, the players moved on and milan remained in your heart. These group of players are completely different to back then because for one every player wanted to play in serie a and Italians were prominent back then.
Today is not like that. Serie a is no longer as strong or as attractive as it once was. Italian players are no longer the same calibre. So if a deal comes in that’s impossible to refuse and you can bring it more depth/quality players then it must be done. So as sad as I am to see a milanista leave I hope it’s for the better and we get better from it and I can fall in love with the new players that represent THE TEAM.