Yesterday, it was officially confirmed that AC Milan had ended last season in the red, but Gerry Cardinale will not change his new vision.
Seeing that Milan ended the year in the red may bring on worries for some. However, there are things to support the loss and it has regularly accompanied reports about a potential drop into the red that the Rossoneri wouldn’t be in financial trouble as a result.
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After years of profit, there is credit in the bank – both metaphorically and literally – so the new way of operating will not be thrown away.
Cardinale’s plan
Instead, Gazzetta dello Sport reports that Cardinale plans to continue investing in the club, as written in this morning’s edition of the paper (seen below).
After missing out on Champions League football, recording a loss was inevitable and this was what confirmed by Paolo Scaroni yesterday. However, it’s not like the club had massively dropped. Profits had only totalled €13 million across three years. So, it’s not like a drop from €10m profit per year to a €24m loss.
It’s a ‘modest’ loss, as the paper puts it, and the deficit was largely absorbed by shareholder equity after injections from Elliott and RedBird – which amounted to €176m in June.
Investment will continue too, with Cardinale keen to invest in the team to strengthen the sporting competitiveness and enhance the club’s value in the medium and long term. Additionally, there is the small matter of building a new San Siro, which will substantially boost the club’s finances.
Waiting for financially iliterate guys here saying this is because of bad selling policy this summer while heavily overpaying for certain players.
I brought the 🍿
Kudos to the club for increasing revenue streams outside of transfers, but why are they mutually exclusive to the conversation about the overall financial health of the club? All financial activity goes towards accounting calculations.
I’m still waiting for Ramos to prove he’s a 74M striker, and not more of a 50M striker (if that), the difference of which coincidentally is about the amount we’re in the red by. I mention Ramos because his transfer counts towards the 2025-26 fiscal year, unlike Moreira and Gila. If we’d spent 25M less on him, last years accounts would literally be in the black, everything else included.
The effects of this summer’s market won’t be felt until the 2026-27 budget closes. Then that will get worse in 2027-28 if we don’t qualify for the CL this season (as CL revenue is realized in the season in which the matches are played). Top 4 is rather critical this season.