Strictly speaking, AC Milan belongs to RedBird. However, more than ever in recent weeks, it appears to be Gerry Cardinale’s club.
La Gazzetta dello Sport recall how Cardinale firstly sacked the entire management after the Cagliari loss. Despite the excessive delays in reshaping the management team, it can’t be said that he hasn’t put his energy, time, and money in since.
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The last few days have been particularly hectic. First came the appointments for the new corporate structure, after Ruben Amorim’s arrival. Then came the first two operational meetings to kick off the new season.
Friday’s meeting was held at Casa Milan with the entire management team in attendance, and it was something of a cross between the presentation of management guidelines and the first transfer market announcements.
Present were recently promoted CEO Massimo Calvelli, Director of Player Trading Hendrik Almstadt, Director of Football Intelligence Bobby Gardiner, and Head of Scouting Donato Lomonte. It was the day that sealed the deal for Gonçalo Ramos.
The following day, the second meeting took place in Lisbon, at Amorim’s ‘home’. It went for over four hours, owners, management, and the coach sat around the same table. The meeting focused on transfer business, and was face-to-face without the constraints of a phone call.
A whole new approach
The decision to involve the new coach personally is significant. Amorim arrived at Milan at a time of profound transformation, and the club’s intention is to involve him fully. Not only that: Cardinale himself has made it clear he will do everything possible to accommodate his requests.
The fact that a full summit has been convened also gives a sense of the new dimension with which the RedBird boss intends to govern the club: a continuous workflow, a sort of circular flow along which all the components work so that nothing and no one can interrupt.
Cardinale is personally taking charge of choices and decisions, easing the burden on the group that often entangled the hierarchical chain before. That said, everyone obviously works within their own area of responsibility. All the roles that existed before the purge have been reinstated.
Therefore: the head of scouting (Lomonte) studies and recommends the most worthy candidates, the director of football intelligence (Gardiner) integrates or recommends new ones in turn.
The director of player trading (Almstadt) is the recipient of this work and is also essentially the person responsible for managing negotiations, the CEO (Calvelli) examines the financial implications and sustainability of each deal. At the top of the pyramid, Cardinale gives the thumbs up or thumbs down.
Milan’s new decision-making process can be summarised in these lines, to which Ibrahimovic should obviously be added. Cardinale has forcefully clarified that Zlatan remains within his role as a consultant, or advisor, and that he doesn’t make any decisions.
I know he failed eventually but how is any of this fair to Allegri? He asked for a striker (and a CB) both last summer and in January and was told that we don’t have the funds which turned out not to be true quickly after, instead they wanted and tried to bring him Mateta against his wishes (not to mention the debacle with Boniface, we’ve wasted so many precious time with that guy and don’t even get me started on Harder and other mediocrities); five months later, we have (and
will spend in all likelihood) over 80 million euros all of a sudden? Shady as hell.
*against Allegri’s wishes, of course (just to be clear)
Maybe because Allegri back then had a different management structure, and above all, Furlani, who dictated the transfers. And maybe after 4 years of failures, Cardinale decided to spend more and – just like the title of the article – to delegate less, be more hands-on, and actually listen & involves the coach with transfers? Not to mention Amorin is a “Manager” not a traditional coach like Allegri.
Furlani couldn’t bypass the owner, if Allegri asked for a center-back and (especially) a proper striker while still very much being in the race and didn’t get any of that, what more sign of disrespect and sabotage do you need no matter how traditional some coach might and may be? No, Allegri didn’t deserve that, Milan certainly didn’t deserve that.
“Allegri didn’t deserve that”
LOL. Allegri never deserved to be hired in the first place. He’s just an old dinosaur whose methods stopped working half a decade ago.
stop complaining all the time. for once they actually trying to make this club better.
It’s definitely frustrating to see it now, when had they spent the money on the right players and at the right times last year you possibly could have challenged for the scudetto….
But better late than never I guess.
Had they spent it in the winter…
Yeh I think they were coasting – top four was “good enough” … but when that went pear shaped Cardinale finally woke up..
I’m actually glad things ended this way. Had we bought someone useful in January, we’d be in UCL but stuck with Furlani & Allegri and the most disgusting football on the planet. Now there’s actually a chance that things can improve.
GERRY ANALE!!!!!!!!!
This wasn’t planned. It just happened to be the case because no one wanted to come to our mess. So Gerry had no choice but to pretend this was what he had intended.