AC Milan director Paolo Maldini has admitted that the club must move on from San Siro to return to elite levels but disagrees on a key part of the current plans.
There have been talks about building a new stadium for years back to the end of Silvio Berlusconi’s time in charge, but under Elliott Management the project seems to have really got going as the American fund have constantly preached the importance of having a new state of the art home that brings access to sizeable revenue channels to catch up with Europe’s elite.
Among the many topics addressed by Maldini in his interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport was the construction of a new stadium, an issue on which the director was very clear.
“San Siro was made great by the teams that have played there. If we want to be competitive we need a new stadium. It is the only way to be competitive in Europe,” he said (via MilanNews).
“But the new stadium cannot have 55 thousand spectators, it must be large, capacious. Football is a sport popular, the stadium cannot be elitist. We owe our fans a facility as big as San Siro.”
It was recently reported by Tuttosport (via MilanNews) that both Milan and Inter have registered huge numbers in terms of turnout at the stadium in the last month with crowds of over 70,000 showing up. It was agreed that 63,000 should be the capacity of the new Populous stadium, but there may be reflections given the support of the two sides.
The real problem is undoubtedly economic as it would cost more to build a stadium with greater capacity and to maintain it, but on the other hand around Europe we see Barcelona and Real Madrid expanding their stadiums, with Liverpool and Manchester United intending to do the same.
