The pressure of personal terms: Milan’s familiar negotiating strategy on display again

AC Milan are once again relying on a familiar strategy when it comes to transfer targets, and it all revolves around player-led pressure.

The latest example of this formula concerns Ardon Jashari of Club Brugge. Milan have tried to put the pieces in place to ensure that the Belgian side feel some kind of pressure to consider offers, by building leverage.

To be more specific, personal terms have been agreed with Jashari and the Swiss international told Brugge that he wants to join Milan. Thus, every bid that is sent comes with the additional context that there is only one party holding things up.

Why does this feel like a familiar strategy? Well that’s because it is. Milan often use this approach of building pressure and grinding down resistance to get their man, and it has been successful repeatedly.

The many examples

Just this summer there are multiple examples of Milan agreeing personal terms with a transfer target and then seeking to strike a deal over the transfer fee. Jashari is just the latest example, but the formula was also used on an alternative target in Granit Xhaka.

When Milan were assessing their various options for the midfield they sat down at various negotiating tables and began work on the players’ sides. The Rossoneri managed to turn Xhaka’s head, as his father confirmed in an interview, but at present it looks like they will not move any further.

Instead, they will go for Luka Modric (a slightly different situation given his expiring deal) plus Jashari and almost certainly Samuele Ricci, who is close to being announced. It was reported back in January that Milan were speaking to the entourage of the Italian to agree a provisional contract.

There are numerous examples from the last summer window, too. Milan went player-first with Strahinja Pavlovic and then were able to land him from Red Bull Salzburg, the same with Emerson Royal from Spurs and Youssouf Fofana from Monaco.

Prior to that, an identical approach was used to eventually get AZ Alkmaar to sell Tijjani Reijnders for what ended up being a bargain price. Noah Okafor, Samuel Chukwueze, Yunus Musah, Christian Pulisic and Ruben Loftus-Cheek the same speech applies: the directors went to the entourage first then accelerated with their respective clubs.

The stand-out signing of the 2022 summer mercato was Charles De Ketelaere, and the way things played out with Brugge is almost in parallel with how the Jashari negotiations are progressing. Eventually Milan wore the Belgians down, and they plan to do the same again.

Why Milan do it

Starting with the obvious, there are leverage advantages for Milan if they get a player to agree to join them. Rarely are they at an elite side – because convincing someone to leave Real Madrid or Barcelona is a different story entirely – so the Rossoneri are able to exert an advantage.

And so, once they have their heart set on playing at San Siro, they are likely to apply pressure to their current club to let them go, either directly or through their agent. Why do the selling side not just reject the attempts? The risk of keeping an unhappy player, and (subsequently or otherwise) not cashing in when they had the chance.

In many cases, the Milan directors will often have come away from a closed operation thinking they managed to trim a few million off the asking price too. Many of the aforementioned examples started with a big distance between the initial offer and demand, before the gap was whittled down over time.

So, there is a discount aspect. That is important for a club like Milan in a league like Serie A, where – despite being one of the biggest fishes – competing with the top sides around Europe is difficult because of lower revenues comparatively.

As an example, almost every Premier League team can outbid Milan for any given player. Leeds United offered more for De Ketelaere as was well documented at the time, but the playmaker only wanted to join Milan. Every edge must be exploited when not competing on a (financially) level playing field.

Timing is also another factor that is aided by the player-first plan. The ability to verbally ‘lock in’ a contract with a transfer target is effectively getting two things at once: 1) a certainty they want to join Milan and 2) the actual contract already in place. Then, the transfer fee becomes the final step.

One such instance that proves this is actually an entirely different scenario, the one involving Marcus Thuram. Given it was a free transfer there was no club-to-club fee to agree and it was the contract offered that made the difference in Inter’s favour, so don’t underestimate the power of agreeing a salary and duration ahead of time.

Granted, Milan’s now customary strategy of agreeing personal terms first is not a revolutionary approach as some other clubs do it regularly. It doesn’t always work, either, but as of late it has worked pretty well.