Paolo Maldini has been heavily praised for his work at AC Milan, winning the Scudetto and reaching the Champions League semi-finals in spite of operating with a small budget. And the director has a clear strategy.
Many were surprised to see Milan lift the Scudetto last season as, on paper, several other rivals had ‘better teams’. The Rossoneri played as a team from start to finish, though, and made the best use of individuals like Theo Hernandez and Rafael Leao.
Speaking to the Muschio Selvaggio podcast (via MilanNews), Maldini shared his thoughts on Milan’s project and explained that the path is a must for the club. The financial gap is simply too big to do it any other way.
“Right now the financial gap is huge and it’s not easy to make up for. Milan was a great club until 2007, then it struggled to keep up with certain clubs like PSG, Real and United in terms of revenues.
“Today we are battling – losing from an economic point of view – against teams that finish 18th in the Premier League. The economic power of these teams is greater than ours, but we have tradition and ideas,” he stated.
Thanks to the success in this season’s Champions League, collecting around €125m in revenue, Milan will be able to spend a decent amount this upcoming summer. Therefore, the fans are hoping for the right signings from Maldini.
He is a good leader indeed
So In other words we have no money lol
It’s true..our revenues are in line with Leicester, Leeds and Everton. Players are literally coming to Milan because of our history and because Maldini is there.
This is all true, but there are still bargains to be had. Endicka, Tielemans, Zaha, Traore from wolves, Aouar, kamada. Maybe even Arsenio. We dont need to spend big on transfer fees, just be a bit more flexible on the wages.
Tradition? We have no italian players, yet our tradition is that us and inter split in a large part due to us having a lot of italian players and inter wanting to be more international hence inter milan… tradition? Wow Paolo. Nice words but you don’t uphold it. I’m disappointed.
Man you’re obsessed with this Italian players thing. More than half of our team has been foreigners for decades. At the top levels football is an international sport, and clubs try to get the best players regardless of nationality.
Sorry, it’s the way I feel. I’m old school for better or worse. It’s not just italians. I like when German teams play a good amount of Germans, when Spanish teams play a good amount of Spaniards, and so on. It just means more when they meet in the CL rather than every team of international all stars where nothing means anything besides money. If you feel differently I respect that but don’t knock my stuff.
One issue is that Italian teams want a kings ransom for young Italian players but as such, we let Gnonto leave Italy for 4.5m when we bought Messias for 3.5m. So that was a mistake in my book.
Agreed. Italian players aren’t expensive. It’s lazy scouting.
Well. 300 million of revenues without player sales is not small amount. Premier league will reach its highest point in team. In Italy if Milan continue win one of first 4 positions, we are always in area top of clubs and we should continue to create new players. And let English clubs spend money on our players, at least 100 million per season more.
I have been a Milanista for 68 years and have been following the economic aspect of football and sports in general.
I feel very disappointed all along and, now more than ever that sports has become a ‘money talks’ business.
The price for the more talented players/sportsmen has become sickening and an enemy of social justice with the major part of income coming from the restricted living budgets of those who can least afford.
The money winners who become filthy rich are the agents of the players and the players themselves. Talented players of today are lesser paid than those of yesterday while still performing at the same high level as the others used to.
We need to reduce the exhorbitant remunerartion while making sure that the tax payable for the common good, is not abused with tax avoidance in low tax jurisdictions.
In the meantime let’s enjoy every sport and appreciate the gifted talent of upcoming players without having to do it with the main objective of money.
In the meantime FORZA GRANDE MILAN PER SEMPRE.
Unfortunately the media and modern fans are very much part of the problem.
On any given day there are numerous articles and comments with the sole focus on money, money, money.
“Fans” criticise club owners for not spending money, and constantly demand new signings whilst writing off the very players they should be supporting.
Transfer speculation provides a constant stream of content for media so the media never questions the dodgy dealings that goes on.
Ignoring even the despots who have bought clubs in an attempt to clean up their image, in an average transfer window (that’s once every 6 months) the top 5 leagues (that’s 98 clubs) are involved in thousands of transfers (that’s about 20+ per club).
Players are being flipped around left and right just to make a quick buck. It’s completely destroying the game. Players can never reach their potential if by their mid-20s they’ve had more clubs than people have had bar jobs.
If you took a race horse and “loaned” it out to different trainers for 5 years there’s no way it would win any races. This is what we are seeing with elite athletes.
But fans and the media don’t care, and actually demand a never ending series of transfers. And directors oblige because it makes them look busy.
@Maldinis Heir I thought you didn’t care about how the club spends money based on your other comments? Or how much they cost etc, just that you’re a fan and the club is there to ease fans? 🤔
@Godfrey you do realize Berlusconi had AC Milan as the Man City back in in the day. The same exact thing City is doing is what we did for years. So we can’t cry now after all the success and recognition Berlusconi money bought us. One can say it was AC Milan (Later Madrid galacticos era and the Chelsea Abramovich era) that created the situation we currently have
any other way 😉 there is a way yes, developing talent and the UCL. Does M&M follow the path? Revenue from Kessie, Hakan, Gianluigi? Possible revenue from sinings like Giroud, Origi, Baka? Should we have been the club who sell Enzo for 120mio? How helpful this little amount would be for us? Nunez, Sancho, Bellingham and many more are nice examples and what is a fact here is that a sining older then age of 21 definitely is not the explained way
Here lies the difference.
Enzo was sold for 120m, but was bought for 44m a year earlier (even tho Moncanda had arranged a way lower price in case Milan moved for him instead of waiting for Renato Sanchez).
Is there any chance we ‘ll buy a talent for 44m?
No way in Hell.
Now, regarding, “forced sells” look at bakayoko, castillejo (rebic even). Some players silpy do not want to leave, even if they dont play (not only salary-wise). The problem lies on our squad depth. Explaining : when you are fighting for CL qualification (or Scudetto even), and you have a thin squad, you cannot “force” a player to either bring an offer to be sold, or renew.
Can you imagine Tatarusanu instead of Gigio the year we beat Juve and Atalant in the last rounds and FINALLY returned to CL?
Could we have won Serie A last year if we benched Kessie in order to renew or lose a year watching from the stands?
As long as we dont have alternatives, the players (the agents actually), will always have leverage upon us.
Preach bro! These guys really don’t understand. It’s easy to get caught up in the “hey we did t get money for x, y and z”. But fail to realize maybe we wouldn’t win anything if we let them go. How much is a trophy really worth? Do we really want one less Scudetto or an extra 10-20mil. in the coffers for Kessie? On the flipside jtstalso true. We could pay over the top 12-14mil. per season plus 20m commission to defend the title and possibly UCL final but we dont really make that kind of money