AC Milan CEO Giorgio Furlani has flown to the United States to meet owner Gerry Cardinale and begin planning for next season, a report claims.
Today’s edition of La Gazzetta dello Sport reports that Furlani will sit down with Cardinale today having headed to the USA to talk about the team and the future. It is not just any meeting – the pair don’t see each other in the United States every week – but it is not just any moment.
Milan are in a period of trouble that has been seen only a few times in its recent history and they have complicated months ahead. Inter, Napoli, Atalanta and Juventus have a double-digit advantage in terms of points and the team are losing games, confidence, value on the market.
This meeting at the beginning of March has all the makings of an important turning point, as a potential ‘day zero’ in the planning of the new Milan.
New management
An owner and a CEO do not communicate the agenda of their meeting but some topics are inevitably on the agenda. The choice of the sporting director is a big topic, the main ahead of Milan’s planning for 2025-26.
Milan have chosen to rely on a classic SD, in contrast with the management of the last two years. Gerry Cardinale and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, his right-hand man and trusted man, have had talks with Igli Tare, Fabio Paratici and Andrea Berta.
Furlani, the key manager in the negotiations of recent years, did not participate. How did they do? Tare is the favourite but Paratici can return to the stage soon because this book still has pages to write, the decision has not been made and the internal balances at Milan are settling.
As CEO, Furlani is the manager with the power to sign and has always been involved in all the decisions. Can he limit himself to ratifying a decision made by others? Difficult. “The decisions go through me,” he himself said on Sunday evening.
Accounts and stadium
The sporting director, however, is only one of the checkpoints that Milan will pass through. Cardinale and Furlani will inevitably talk about the management of this moment of crisis.
The Diavolo will close the seasonal accounts ‘with a small profit or a small loss, in the absence of large sales’, as CFO Cocirio said in October. Speaking of the budget, the failure to qualify for the Champions League – now practically certain – is a topic of discussion, like the stadium.
Milan, together with Inter, are making important decisions and wants to arrive at the end of the summer as the owner of the areas of the old and (if there ever will be) the new San Siro.
It is the first true point of no return in an endless story, born when Furlani was portfolio manager of Elliott Management and Cardinale had not yet founded RedBird Capital.
Refoundation
The rest will be thought about, with relative calm because Milan has a lot to change. They will have a new coach, will replace many players, will modify the dressing room hierarchy.
Theo Hernandez and Rafa Leao, historically the strongest players, can leave in the summer. Mike Maignan, the other signature written in large on the Scudetto, essentially has an agreement for a demanding contract renewal.
The club will have to choose new leaders and face a decline in international image that Cardinale cannot be happy with. The ordinary administration, already not very fashionable at the club, will not be enough and the decisions will inevitably be strong and risky.
For this reason, even if Central Park in March is a spectacle, Furlani will not be in New York on vacation.
Gerry & co has no money to build own stadium bro… You must be more rich than John elkan / agnelli familia. Where the money you wants to build the squad if your team not competitive and has no more UCL football ? Sell all the best players ! Haha…
Every club in the world builds their stadiums with loan money. Whether the owner has millions or billions.
A lot of funds come from sponsors and naming rights. Juventus got funded for selling naming rights to Allianza, Arsenal from Emirates etc.
While inter have beaten feyenoord 0-2 at his own stadium, suddenly Milan have struggle to beat them. And then Milan now have to rebuild the squad. Same story : gambling with no skill management.
#vatteneibra
#vattenecardinale
Replace USA for Mordor in the article. That’s the way.
Act I Scene 1- Cardinale’s office
Cardinale: Come in Furlani.
Furlani: (as he sits down) Good morning sir.
Cardinale: (angry) Furlani – get your fukcing bum off my chair. YOU ARE FIRED – BIG NOSE IBRA TOO IS FIRED – AND MONCADA AS WELL. SERVES FOR RIGHT FOR THE HUGE MESS YOU MADE, THE THREE OF YOU ….. NOW …… GET OUT OF THIS PLACE … NOW. …. AND DON’T YOU EVER COME UNSHAVEN AND DIRTY IN MY OFFICE …. EVDN THOUGH YOU ARE DRESSED IN A SUIT ….
Furlani: (wipes his tears and stumbles out of the room)
Cardinale: ( as door shuts) …. and these fukcing idiots told me to fire Maldini and Massara …..
None of this matters.
If they same crew is charge of rebooting from the mess they themselves created, then nothing will get resolved and we’re in for another season of more or less the same …
I agree; the owner must go. Maldini has to come back as the front man of a new ownership. Elliott, Gazidis, and Maldini restored ACM to respectable health, both on and off the pitch; Redbird, Furlani, and Zlatan have undermined all the good work of their predecessors in building a competitive team.
Americans aren’t ACM’s root problem; rather, this particular American is. On the one hand, there’s high-flying Liverpool – owned by an American. On the other, there’s Man Utd – run into the ground, just like ACM, by a different kind of American.
Unless Cardinale wants to rapidly become one of the most despised foreigners in Italy, he should get out. With all due respect, he’s not fit to be a cardinal, much less a papa of one of Italy’s most decorated football clubs.
How many more years must we wait before ACM features again in a Champions League final and wins that competition? What we’re going through right now with an owner that appears to treat ACM as a fungible – a characterless commodity whose core Italian identity on the pitch has been stripped; its iconic red and black shirt colors relegated; and one of its most revered and talismanic ex-players exiled – is a travesty.
A club that shreds its unique historical identity and prioritizes profit over genuine sporting success has betrayed its roots. If ACM’s only link henceforth to Milan is that it’s based in that city, why should any fan in Italy or abroad who loves calcio continue to support the team? ACM may as well up sticks and head off to Las Vegas and play there as the Casino City Cardinals.