Without the money guaranteed by the next Champions League, AC Milan are looking at how they can raise funds to boost the summer budget.
As La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) report this morning, on the one hand the management know there is the obligation to strengthen the squad by adding quality players who guarantee the motivation to redeem a disappointing 2024-25.
Yet, on the other there is the need to sell the players who no longer fit into the technical project, and there is the possibility of no money incoming from any European competitions to naturally boost the budget.
The new sporting director (who Milan are yet to choose) is looking ahead to a summer of intense work and – together with Giorgio Furlani, Geoffrey Moncada and Zlatan Ibrahimovic – will have to renew the squad respecting the indications of the new coach.
Sales to raise money
Without Champions League football, it is clear that the squad will be thoroughly revised, especially in the event of a change of formation dictated by the incoming coach. Some of the players who arrived from the summer of 2023 onwards have not convinced, and the old guard are in question.
The latter applies to Theo Hernandez, whose contract expires in June 2026 and, at this point, little chance of renewing it especially in light of the disappointing performance that the Frenchman has had so far.
How much is the former Real Madrid player worth now? In January 2026 he will be able to sign a pre-contract with another club. The figures talked about in the past for the sale of Theo (around €50-60m in 2022 and 2023) will be revised downwards.
It is expected that around €30m will be needed to convince Milan, plus a salary for Hernandez that is higher than the current one (€4.5m net per year). Como came forward with around €40m in January, but Theo wasn’t convinced.
Fikayo Tomori also has his bags packed, even if he did start the last game. In the winter transfer window Juventus came forward with around €30m including bonuses, and Spurs were also strongly linked, yet the Englishman preferred to stay. In the summer it should be a different story.
For Yunus Musah, a farewell could be dictated by the player’s desire for a change of scenery after a complicated period in terms of Sergio Conceicao’s handling of him (he has been taken off twice in the first half) and also his own performances.
Samuel Chukwueze, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Emerson Royal have little chance of staying: the few minutes played (also due to injuries) are leading to a separation. Offers will be listened to for Mike Maignan, Rafael Leao and Strahinja Pavlovic.
Options to buy
The players out on loan with an option to buy are a separate discussion. It is difficult to predict what the other teams will do even if Juventus seem oriented to buy Pierre Kalulu for €14m which will be a pure capital gain.
The same goes for Marseille with Ismael Bennacer, but other situations are more fluid. Even in the case of a return to Milanello, it is still difficult to imagine that Noah Okafor, Yacine Adli, Tommaso Pobega and Lorenzo Colombo.
Alexis Saelemaekers has a lot of admirers and Roma wants to keep him. The valuation of €15m from last summer has increased, so if the Giallorossi do not convince the Rossoneri with a Tammy Abraham swap or by putting Lorenzo Pellegrini on the table, he could head abroad.
More realistic sales are: Kalulu 14 mill gain, and Bennacer 10 mill gain.
Hernandez could reject all transfer offer and Tomori should be forced out to premier league.
So Kalulu Bennacer Tomori. Around 30- 35 of capital gain.
Opportunities to be sold (but not below some price) Emerson Royal, Loftus Cheek, Chukwueze.
Loaned potentials who had huge value. Adli, Pobega, Colombo, Okafor, Saelemakers, Lazetic, Vasquez, Pellegrino, Morata.
in which universe is Tomori worth 10M?
20-25M for the Brit, 14M Kalulu and Bennacer 10M, making 44-49M…
Theo 30-35M, Pobega, Adli, Vasquez will give us 25M… Morata extension also gets us 6M if I remember…
Colombo is on a dry streak, Okafor is not being used at all
use Saelemakers for Pellegrini and Abraham, might be a good deal… (Saelemakers, might struggle as RW/LW he’s more RM/LM and we would then need to use either 442 or 352/343). Those 2 for Roma are good subs for Gimenez and Tiji at the end of the day.
So for our players we can get 2 players, 105-115M and 2 players to sell, along with Emerson Royal, RLC, Terraciano, Chukwueze… around 45-50M extra
In terms of sale there is huge difference between the price the club sold player and final capital gain which is shown in the books.
If you sell Tomori for 25 mil, capital gain is 10, and if you sell him for 20, 5 million is gain.
Milan will lose all revenue from UCL plus ticket sale plus some commercial revenue that are connected to UCL play.
So Milan need more of capital gain.
Of course by selling expensive players, Milan will save on cost side, but around 100 million of capital gain Milan can reach only if sell one of stars – Maignan Theo.
But, Milan must save as much as possible best players in team. Because we can already seen what happened with players like Emerson, Pavlovic… Morata.
Don’t forget that funds generated from sales will first be used to cover the costs of missing out on CL qualification. Then if anything is left, they’ll probably add it up to their annual summer budget of 35 millions.
Sell everyone except Pulisic Reijnders and some of the young bench players.
You can speculate as much as you want and calculate how IN THEORY we could get like 200M€ from sales but the reality is that the players Milan would be selling won’t gather that much interest – nor competition.
The only ones that might trigger clubs to try their luck are MM16 & Theo but Milan is in the corner with them. Zero leverage. We’d only receive “milanesque lowball offers” for the duo because clubs can easily wait a year if they want.
RLC, Musah, Emerson etc. Now who’s going to make a serious bid for the rubbish ones? Some might offer ~10M€ to see how desperate the new SD is to get rid off them but adding a few 10M€s here and there won’t renew half of the squad as we need to.
Out of the loaned out players my bet is on Kalulu only. He will be the only one getting purchased for sure. Vasquez might be the other as he’d cost only 1M€. Pobegas, adlis, colombos will be returning in the summer. Like they always do. Until their contracts run out.
Thank you for this.
All this theories and what not are just pointless speculations.
I doubt even Theo and leo would generate 100 mil.
I agree. Some might only go on loan. Also, let’s assume we do manage to get 100-150 million. There are 10-15 players on the chopping block according to this article, not to mention Felix and Sottil who seem destined to leave. These players need to properly replaced. Does anyone trust this management to do it?
We already saw them spend 200 million, to finish 19 points off Inter last season, exit the Champions League in the group stage two seasons in a row, and not qualify for the Champions League next season barring a miracle.
We need competent people at the top.
Everything will be futile until we have a competent SD with enough power to call the shots. If the current clowns still decide who we buy and sell and who will be the coach, then we’re doomed to fail. Again.
I think you’re generally right, but we need to ask who needs to come in before we can write off the outgoing market.
Starting scenario: nothing changes. What I mean by this is that of the current 1st team squad nobody leaves. It would not be the worst thing. While we have issues, I believe this squad is better than Lazio’s, Roma’s, Bologna’s and probably even Juventus’. That makes this squad a top 4 squad. It’s clear that our number 1 problem this season was the choice of coach. Fonseca, while slightly better than Conceicao, left us basically we where we are now. By simply appointing a good coach, I think we’d already have one foot in the CL next season. The only minimum investment would be a good DM, and I think the club will have ~30M in transfer funds without sales (as we did in the Elliott years), which ought to be enough for this, even if it’s not fan favorite Ricci. Then for those players on their final on contract years, we’d have to bite the bullet and hope that a good season and coach would convince them to renew, or else they walk on a free and we deal with that in 2026 with CL money.
If we do embark on a[nother] revolution, I think with certain sales there would still be enough funds, even if the income isn’t going to be as great as some people think it will be. Assuming Theo accepts a sale, I think he’d bring in ~25M. I think Tomori will bring in aroud ~20-25M. I think Adli will have a market, it will be around 8-10M. Salad will also have a market for ~10-15M. Kalulu would be the 14 as stated in his deal. That’s 77M not including the “regular” 30M, to replace only 1 starter (LB), add a quality DM, and a quality CB. So really, 107M for three positions. This is not bad at all. Then maybe another LB as a backup and we have our squad. Sottil will return to Fiorentina, Okafor will come back and he is good enough for the bench, Chukwueze keeps backing Pulisic up (and we’ll still have Jimenez who can play on either flank), Abraham goes back to Roma and Jovic backs up Gimenez, with Camarda as a no. 3 option (or we can even make a free agent signing for this role for a little more experience a little risk, so that Camarda can continue to develope somewhere else in peace), or even just admit that Colombo (and Colombo would also have to admit this to himself) is never going to be some kind of bomber and just make him the no. 3 guy; Tijji is our no. 10; the midfield is new DM, Fofana, Bondo, and then the rest as backups; defense is New LB, new backup LB, 4 CBs (Thiaw, Gabbia, Pavlovic, New CB), and Walker with Royal backing up.
So really four new players: LB, backup LB, CB, DM. Then there are a couple of academy players that might be able to actually contribute and add depth, like Zeroli who has been seeing Serie A time with Monza recently. And if Pobega comes back and is happy to extend his contract, I don’t see why we can’t get then also get rid of Musah for as much as we can get.
I know people are not happy with certain players like RLC, Okafor, Chuk, etc., but these players are backups and will be fine as such for a club not playing in Europe next season. It’s not going to need, and won’t be able to afford, 300M in new players. We just need to do enough within a budget of 107M (and maybe a couple more depending on other departures) to get us back in the top 4, and then we can build further on that in 2026 by getting rid of more deadbeats, and so on.
In the words of Martin Luther King Jr.
“I HAVE A DREAM…”
____Sales____
GK – Maignan – 30m
CB – Gabbia – 18m
CB – Tomori – 22m
CB – Thiaw – 23m
LB – Theo – 30m
RB – Emerson Royale – 7m
RB – Florenzi – Free
DM – Bennacer – 14m
CM – Musah – 25m
CM – Fofana – 30m
CM – Bondo – 10m
CM – Loftus Cheek – 8m
LW – Leao – 65m
LW – Okafor – 10m
RW – Chukwueze – 14m
ST – Jovic – Free
ST – Origi – Free
ST – Gimenez – 30m
Loans
CB – Kalulu – 14m
CM – Adli – 10m
CM – Pobega – 7m
RW – Salamaekers – 15m
ST – Colombo – 5m
___PURCHASES___
GK – Restes – 30m
CB – Bertola – 5m (Free)
CB – Viti – 15m
CB – Coppola – 25m
CB – Mosquera – 30m
LB – Bakker – 15m
RB – Pubill – 20m
RB – Hector Fort – 20m
DM – Partey – 25m (Free)
DM – Tonali – 60m
DM – Frendrup – 25m
AM – Casadei – 25m
AM – Jobe Bellingham – 25m
LW – Assane Diao – 40m
LW – Sottil – 10m
ST – Lucca – 25m
ST – Weiper – 5m (Free)
ST – Hojlund – 5m LOAN
TOTAL SOLD = 386m
TOTAL BOUGHT = 405m
TOTAL SPENT = 19m
If it was a fantasy football
These are very reasonable to the reality of the market (at least the selling market).
Only thing I’d change is that Thiaw has a market. I’d expect him to bring in closer to 35-40M.
And Loftus Cheek…that 4M a year salary. I dunno if this guy is even passing a physical again. That 4M seems destined to sit there for 2 more years…
Also I think the Leao sale price will shock people…(how high the price will be).
I like that your values are much more weighted to performances in european competition.
I think his sale could be massive because of his potential in leagues where he doesn’t have to score goals with defenders hanging onto him and a 0 tolerance for tactical fouls.
No offence that is such horror team …
In what way? These are realistic players we can get without CL. And it upgrades everywhere basically. Plus we build for the future.
Restes is probably the best u21 GK in the world.
You get a strong Italian core for the defense, plus a T prospect in Mosquera.
The sidebacks are young athletic big and technical.
The midfield is excellent. You get Tonali back as captian. Partey as the experienced, technical ball winner. Plus one of the best ball winners in Serie A for 2 seasons in a row.
CAM you play Reijnders still but have two huge young guns in Casadei and Bellingham. Bellingham is one of the the best u21 players in the world and will be just as good as his brother. Casadei is phenomenal in the air and a Milan fan. He was also the top goal scorer in the u20 world cup where Italy placed 2nd. You need size in and physicality in Serie A.
Diao to replace Leao long term.
Lucca is fantastic in the air and has great personality that has taken up the ranks of Italian football from Serie C to Serie A. And Hojlund is just in a black hole football team I think. He will give us the work rate we need up front. Size. Speed. And has done well in Serie A before. Still veryyy young too which many forget when they judge him.
Lets be honest. We had a good young team which was completely destroyed by current management. It will take time and smart people to bring it back to something decent. But this will not be soon, as we already have spent a lot of money on the likes of RLC, Musah, Cukwetze, Santiago. Plus we currently do not know which of our players are actually good, and for sure we will loose some good players. Not to mention we still have the same management.
I think we know enough about these players. I still believe Musah could become a good player but I would rather sell for Frendrup who has consistently been a great ball winner in Serie A for 2 years in a row. In fact he is the best according to sofascore.
Casadei and Bellingham I think are much better prospects also for the same price.
Lastly Musah’s contracts is winding down more but if we sell now we could maybe make a profit.
if Conti comes in..he’s keeping musah (if he wants to stay)…otherwise that’s probably right although hes the only ball winner on the club and his 1v1 defense but it may be of more value in a different context. Midfielders win balls when the front line forces rushed decisions…
“I still believe Musah could become a good player”
😀 😀 😀 😀 😀