AC Milan’s Chief Financial Officer Stefano Cocirio has spoken about the 2023-24 accounts which were approved yesterday and what it means for the future of the club.
The accounts show that Milan have recorded a net profit for the second consecutive year, this time €4.1m. This profit was fuelled by record revenues of €457m, marking a new all-time high for the club, surpassing the previous season’s record of €404.5m, a +13% increase.
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Given that on the field the Rossoneri did not go deep in the Champions League nor win a trophy, player trading played a big part in things. It went up €45.9m compared to the previous season, primarily due to capital gains – from Sandro Tonali’s sale above all – and higher loan fee income.
This has led to worried that – to simplify things – if Milan do not go deep in Europe then they will be ‘forced’ to sell a key player for big money to fill the hole in the budget. That is, if the owners wish to remain in profit.
Cocirio spoke to journalists who were present at the meeting to brief them on the results and answer questions about the direction that the leadership wish to take moving forward. MilanPress relayed his comments.
Is there a transfer fee limit of €20m per player?
“We already have an increased cost for the registered players of 8% in the 2023-24 season. There is no specific objective. By organically generating resources, we reinvest them in full. Also for 2024-25 the investment will grow, also taking into account Milan Futuro.”
Will the club make an extra effort to renew the contracts of players already in the squad like Maignan and Theo Hernandez?
“Last year we renewed ten first-team contracts, which is proof of the club’s desire to retain the best players.”
Does the budget mirror the ambitions of the club?
“The budget assumptions do not represent the sporting ambition of the club. They are conservative budgets, then we take note of the sporting performances and invest the amount in the next transfer window. In this year’s budget we have reaching the play-offs in the Champions League.”
What do you say to the AIMC protests about ticket allocations?
“There has been no reduction in tickets for the Italian Milan Club Association. We met last week, there are some issues put on the table by AIMC and we are discussing them to try to find an agreement that is good for both parties.”
Do you expect a balanced budget without big player sales?
“More or less we expect a range of a small profit or a small loss in the absence of large sales like that of Tonali last year.
“We don’t need to sell players, these are opportunistic situations that are evaluated on a case-by-case basis based on the offers the club receives. We have the ability to choose precisely thanks to the accounts.”
Every day we have a reminder that Milan is no longer a football club.
Everyday you remind us how moot your point has become.
👏
Yep!
Only flyingturtle is more toxic than you, and that is quit an achievement – for both of you.
Where is Bartholomeo wrong?
Then why are you here? To b*tch and whine? And you’re doing it well too.
We can’t all be alpha males like you are and I’m here for the Desperate Housewives-like drama since that’s all we can have these days.
This is exactly what I thought. Without the sale of a star player, either Leao or Theo, next summer’s budget is going to be small. We can’t keep spending €100+ million on players every season. It’s not sustainable.
and who are you replacing them with?
Hopefully with players who play for the team and can play consistently without playing 4 poor matches after one good one.
Barteshagi is a left back. Pulisic’s preferred position is on the left. The money would go on a forward. Maybe they go back in for Zirkzee on loan. They could even go for Mbeumo, Lookman or Vlahovic as their contracts will expire in 2026, which means next summer they only have 12 months left so their value is lower.
The problem is that since you’ll be giving those 100M€ to Moncada and Furlani, you’ll be damn sure they’ll go for cheap mediocre players from the french, dutch or austrian leagues and not even try to adress the weaknesses in our team.
Exactly.
Addressing weaknesses in the team? The biggest weakness is Leao, get rid of him and you have addressed it.
I think Mocada will be sacked at the end of the season. The club know they need Italian players.
The 20m limit is really interesting. It’s just at the right range where it mitigates downside risks but tempers upside risks.
If a player bought turns out to have potential beyond that valuation, in the right conditions, can exceed the price paid if the performances are good (Puli for example). While at the same time if they happen to flop, as.suming a 5 year contract, would only devalue so-to-speak to 16m on the books. In a year or two, it would be easier to sell on (10-15m) simply due to the nominal size of the fee and without making a significant loss on the books..perhaps break even or a small profit/loss. And along with this it really becomes a calculated gamble to bet on a player to come good based on potential or on metrics.
Contrast that to purchasing a player for 40m, flops and 1 year later book value is 32m. It’s much harder to move on as a 30m player comes with more expectations than a 10-15m player. Plus you’d have a flop player but asking for 30m, that’s a hard sell.
So 20m is both a good psychological, statistical (referring to prev article on the topic) and financial limit to put on purchases of you’re a club bent on mitigating risk. However there is a tradeoff. What exactly are you getting at 20m? You’ll need someone good to spot players at that range. There are known quantities (Puli) and unknown quantities (Musah) at those prices. Yes, stats can guide you but you’ll need a good scout to judge potentially good players.
There was a really good video I saw the other day on eye test vs stats on YouTube. I’ll see if I can link it here. In my past, I used both, as I think it should not be one or the other. As there are thousands of players to an.alyze, it’s stats first, eye test after. But the person with the eye should be very good at spotting good players. That’s where I think the competitive advantage is being made, less so with the statistician unless you’re cheaping out on the stats guy too lol 😂.
What’s disappointing for me so far is that we have no Fabinho, Martial, Bernardo Silva from Moncada. Unknown at the time but became great/good players allegedly from his scouting work.
Martial? How much football have you watched? He’s garbage. He was available on a free transer and no one would touch him. Now he’s in Greece.
Well duh of course not now but it was in reference to Moncada’s time at Monaco (and him saying he was one of his better finds). Early times at Man Utd he was a beast though. Let’s not downplay that. Injuries took his career. But the bigger point was …why is Moncada finding such a hard time finding these hidden gems like he did in the past. That was the point
Every year Milan must reach at least 4h position in Serie a, and play off round in Champions League to keep this structure of squad in terms of salary and ammortisation cost in combined.
That’s not small money because Milan now spend more than 100 million in salaries and probably more than 70 million in total ammortisation.
You can bet that clubs like Dortmund and Leverkusen spend less and they got better result in Champions League for now.