Behind the facade of a meticulous and thoughtful club, the reality is that AC Milan are struggling when it comes to planning for 2025-26.
Far from the image of a club that are ‘evaluating all of the candidates before picking the best one’, Milan instead today appear as an entity incapable of convincing even one of the profiles identified for the role of sporting director.
It is not a problem of there being names available – there are many, as the media continue to point out – but of leadership, of decision-making capacity, of political weight. And above all, of time, time that Milan continue to squander.
Paratici and Tare: missed opportunities or clear signals?
Two names have been closer than the others to joining the Rossoneri as the new sporting director, and there is the common thread that they are both without a club at present: Fabio Paratici and Igli Tare.
The former Juventus man was contacted, there was even talk of a possible and potentially decisive meeting, but after a brief rapprochement the ice has fallen again. In fact, despite a more recent meeting with Gerry Cardinale, Paratici has chosen to stay at Spurs.
It is possible that Paratici got fed up of waiting after the talks weeks prior, and the timing issue was also seen with the first candidate that Milan tried to hire: Andrea Berta. Having left Atletico Madrid his name topped the list, yet the Rossoneri moved too late and he had promised himself to Arsenal.
Igli Tare also met two different entities of the club. The first time he spoke with Cardinale and Zlatan Ibrahimović in London, then with Furlani, but only after the CEO had flown out to the USA to remind the owner of his powers as the CEO.
Two interlocutors, plenty of confusion, zero developments. Tare seems to have remained stuck in that limbo that is now typical of the RedBird-era Milan, where interest never turns into an offer, and/or the proposal never arrives at the right time.
An endless list to never choose
In parallel, the club continues to beat the drum of ‘active directors’. Tony D’Amico, Giovanni Sartori and even names that are difficult to hire like Giovanni Manna are being pushed, creating this notion that things will not be resolved until the season ends.
On the contrary, it is a narrative built to mask the lack of direction. In reality, we are faced with a well-known dynamic: presenting the impression of a choice between many options, to ultimately choose none. The philosophy of RedBird management is not that of calculated risk, but of sterilised risk.
Every decision is sifted through analysis, algorithms, cost-benefit assessments and the prism of internal politics. Nothing moves until every scenario has been thoroughly explored. But football, like life, does not wait.
Fonseca and the disturbing precedent
The choice of Paulo Fonseca to replace Stefano Pioli is the perfect example. He is a coach who won the race more through resistance than conviction, at the end of a summer spent between idle courtships and endless evaluations.
Fonseca was not the first choice, nor perhaps the second, but he was the final one left as a result of a period of indecision. It is a structural problem: Milan always choose at the end, when the market has already changed and the best have already said yes to others.
The real obstacle is the decision-making model: collegial, complex, paralysing. No one 0 not Cardinale, not Furlani nor Ibrahimovic — seems willing to take full responsibility for a choice. And so, to survive the ‘revolving door’ of management, they prefer to go round in circles.
You never get thrown out, of course, but you don’t move forward either. No one wants to be the next to fall, and to avoid that, just don’t choose anything yourself.
There was a moment when Milan acted with a certain speed: when they delegated everything to Jorge Mendes just before the winter transfer window, when the club were thinking about sacking Fonseca. The Portuguese super-agent dictated the guidelines, bringing with him the coach, the players and ideas.
If you want proof of the aforementioned, Mendes actually had to push the management to make the call to sack Fonseca, leaking the information about an agreement being in place with his client Conceicao. It was a circus then, and nothing has changed.
The name that remains
In the end, Tare’s name remains on the table more out of inertia than conviction. He is out of the loop, available, perhaps more ready to accept the conditions imposed by Milan. But he too seems to be waiting, stuck in a stand-by phase because, once again, the final act is missing.
The signature, the decision, the courage is lacking. There is the chance to hire someone who can begin work immediately and knows Serie A well, yet Milan – or at least not every layer of the bureaucratic arrangement – are not convinced.
Milan do not have a scouting problem, nor a contact problem, nor a database problem. It has a courage problem. In a system where no one decides alone, every choice is delayed until the point of forced decision.
Football at these levels is made of actions and those who do not act, in the end, condemn themselves to irrelevance. The feeling is that Milan need not only a sporting, but someone who has the strength to really choose. Even – and above all – in place of those who do not want to do so.
Perfectly analyzed… I dont think there’s more to add or name to described this management with
Very accurate analysis. Again and again and again we come back to how breathtakingly stupid it was to fire Maldini. He had the guts to make a decision, he knew the club and what it takes to win.
I don’t think Maldini could have worked in this environment and he’d have left. Probably they had an argument before firing him. Remember what he said at one of the CL games agains Inter?
Maldini was fired for requiring the authority to be free in his decision making in order to be accountable for his choices. Furliani knows nothing about football. Moncada is a decent scout, he is no negotiator or personality with any weight in a player’s eyes when convincing anyone, coach or player to join us either.
The problem here is they want to run the club like a corporation or regular company.
This is a world where everyone has to have specific roles and tasks that do not overlap and intrude or impede in another’s work. You cannot have a decision by committee process with a banker, a scout, adviser, an owner and sporting director on top of it.
It is complete insanity and an irrelevant approach.
A sporting director needs autonomy and has to be the top of the chain of command with everyone else working in consequence of his choices, not the other way around.
Furliani has to generate the most income for the club, outside of football and sporting decisions. He also has to make an aggressive budget. These cautious moves will cost you. Shoot first ask questions last. If you won’t someone else will in Football and you get left with nothing.
A scout brings forward players that fit a profile requested by the coach, who is hired by the SD, who has a playing and recruitment philosophy in place, he decides upon. It is a process with a global, top to bottom system and streamlined decision making process, no circular nonsense. He does not decide anything, he only can give recommendations, same as the coach. The CEO STFU and signs off on the transfer and goes back in his hole. He has no technical say. Unless you wnst to bring in Mbappé or a Haaland type player.
We shoot ourselves in the foot consistently with rigidity where pliability is required and conversely, pliability where rigidness should be in place.
I said it from the start these people are out of their depth and elements. We always find a way to miss the boat and chances to strike while the iron is hot. You need decisiveness and preparation.
Maldini had to fight the entire remaining staff here to acquire the core of this team. They wanted other players instead and questioned his ability to read and evaluate talent. The greatest defender of all time, doubted by smucks, it is a complete joke and unheard of. Question Origi and other talents fine. On average, success to failure ratio in his transfers, per dollar, individual, collective wage ceilings, and transfer fees included, he stands miles above anything these people accomplished without him. The insolent arrogance is baffling to say the least. Use their own algorithms to evaluate their work compared to his and it is an utter failure.
Origi, Ballo-Toure, CDK, Vranckx, Dest, Bakayoko, Pellgri, Mandzukic,.. Add to that all of the valuable players he let leave for free (Calhanoglu, Donnarumma, Kessie). Maldini made plenty of bad decisions. Let’s stop pretending he was some great GM or Sporting Director. He wasn’t.
Except for CDK (who was recommended by Moncada), the others are either cheap or free. The management never trusted Maldini with big budget. After he was fired, the management promote Moncada and give him big budget yet the result is worse.
Mbappe left for free – point being – players do what they want. Also, you blame Maldini, whereas he was given clear directions on the budget he can spend. Should he have paid Kessie from his pocket? Look where Kessie is now – Saudi. What does that tell you – he is money hungry – and that’s fine. As for other misfits – Maldini made a gamble and it didn’t work out. Kaka didn’t make it in Madrid, didn’t he. Sometimes things like that happen. Maldini stabilized Milan and brought some successes. Where are we today?
Like Yelnats24, among the names you mentioned, only De Ketelaere costed a lot of money, all the others came either cheap of for free. Maldini never spent 15M€ on a player like Emerson Royal. And BTW since he left us, De Ketelaere has been scoring and assisting in the double digits each season, I’d say not too bad for a “trash” player.
Currently, we’ve spent north of 250M€ in 2 seasons and so far only Reijnders, Fofana and Pulišić are g̶o̶o̶d̶ above average.
It’s a bit of a shame how Kessié, Donnaruma and Çalhanoğlu left us (although from a sport results wise I only regret the first one), but Maldini wasn’t the only one to be blamed here, he was operating under a lot of constaints.
But here’s my question for you: You did enjoy criticizing Maldini a LOT, because we finished 5th and got some garbage players for free, so what’s your take on the current management, under which we’re currently 9th, never made it to the UCL round of 16 and got a lot of trash players for amounts between 15M€ and 30M€ ?
He wanted to retain the players. Furliani and co refused to increase the wage cap to keep them. Their algorithms told them Hakan’s demands were 200 k a year above their ceiling, they told Maldini he wouldn’t be given the wage budget to retain him. They forced Maldini to let him walk. They also didn’t increase his wage cap and budget when Kessie helped us qualify for the CL. They tied Maldini’s hands. Kessie at Milan was a driving force in our midfield. He was well worth his requested wages. By the time we decided to table something, Xavi convinced him to go to Barca because Furliani lacked urgency and tried to play the long game with him too, to wait the last minute and force him to accept a low ball deal as he has done since Maldini left in other negotiations.
We can see Maldini is gone, yet they are making the same approach with Theo by offering him a low ball contract now. They had Thuram almost signed, he asked for 500 k to 1 mill a year more and Furliani said no, we will wait to see if anyone comes to offer more, or else he wil lhave no choice to accept less than he requested. Inter waltzed in and stole him from under our nose. We offered Taremi 1 million a year, to the wrong agent who was not the right representative. Lost him.
Clearly these are all signs that the culprits for those free transfer losses are still at the club in decision making roles.
You can say Maldini is responsible for Leao, Theo, Bennacer, Krunic, Tonali, Tomori and Ibra. They all didn’t want to sign them. CDK is worth his transfer fee. The fault for him not performing was the coach who didn’t utilize him correctly. He also arrived to Atalanta out of shape, all our injuries confirm that our medical and physical training coaches were not doing a good job. That isn’t Maldini’s job or fault. He had arguments with Pioli over his choices.
The wage budget and ceiling was only increased when Maldini left because they noticed they couldn’t retain their assets otherwise. Yet still continued to lose potential targets by implementing the same philosophy.
Touré is a Monaco guy, Moncada, the others were cheap loans or short deals, other than Bakayoko who performed well at first and had a downturn after injuries. Origi is his only real lasting bust.
@CHRISP That’s why you don’t let players go into the final yearof their contract without a new deal. Then you have no leverage. You offer them a new deal, the best you can offer, and if they don’t take it you sell them so you can afford to sign a good replacement. Most good managers know this. Maldini did not and repeated this mistake several times. That is why the team started to deteriorate, We didn’t have the money to properly replace these players that left.
Then why has Theo not sold in January? Is that Furliani’s fault? Theo said no, he won’t go to Como. He said he wants to stay until the end of his contract. He stays.
Kessie says he wants to stay, he stays. Donnaruma says that, he stays. Origi said he wants to. He stayed. Clubs don’t decide, player agents and the market decides who stays or goes, where and when.
Our job is to retain our best ones and offer fair value contracts, then sell if there is a market for them and an adequate replacement.
Nonsense. There are ways to deal with players. Most players (excluding Origi) want to play. If they want to sell Theo this summer and he says no, you tell him he won’t be playing at all. Which means he won’t get called up for his National team. He’ll agree. If a player wants to stay he will sign a new contract. If he doesn’t want to stay why would he say no to being sold? The only thing is you have to to either one before the player enters the final year of their contract, where the player then has all the leverage.
This is at least what the club is doing now with Reijnders and Pulisic. You sign them up to new deals now and then if they decide they want to go elsewhere at least that other team will have to pay a transfer fee to get them.
Not doing with this with Donnarumma probably cost them close to 100 mil.
Tell him he won’t play, that is blackballing and illegal for 1. For 2. A player would stay because 6 months later he is available for free agency. He and his agent can dictate his next destination. He can also command a higher wage as well as signing bonus since no transfer fee is applicable. It creates more demand and competition for his signature so that also drives his demands higher.
For 3 a) Benching him will cost you on the field. He is one of your best players. He will help you more playing than benched. b) Benching him would affect the teams reputation in and outside the club. That will affect other players morale as well.
All things considered, the player has no reason to renew if he does not receive fair market at his current club. If they play hardball, he gets more money elsewhere regardless. It cost them more to pay a transfer fee, sign a new contract for a replacement, that player will need at least 1 year in the best case scenario to adapt to the new team, so they suffer performance wise and that can cost more than just renewing him at the wage he requests. Say 20 to 30 million fee, plus 2 million euros over 5 years. So that is a cost of 6 to 8 million euros on average a year for probably a lesser player. You gamble 30 to 40 million euros, plus qualification money in Europe 1 to 2 seasons with the new player.
So they might as well meet his demand of 6 to 8 million, since he can command that or more with sogning bonuses on the open market and he is a proven commodity at your club. An asset. The other player can become an expensive liability.
They would argue and tell you he brought Leao, Maignan etc..
Blud wanted Arnautovic and Pereyra before being sacked lol 😂
IF he’s that Good, How come nobody wants his so called good services??
They would lie and tell you, Maldini only wants Milan.
Furlani and Co are knuckleheads and know nothing about Football but Maldini was not that superb either.
IF they land an experienced SD, You will understand why
I expect backlash from reactionary fans though, It’s normal
Nothing more to say. Nothing more to add. Full circle analysis. Bravo!
Couldn’t have written a better analysis myself, bravo !
Good write up man.
You see your question about the flops and garbage gotten by his favorite Redbird, that Maldini never did.
Regarding the 15 to 30 million been wasted, he can never answer that.
Never. Because when you use their own metrics against them, their hypocrisy comes out full blown. And they can’t help but be gobsmacked.
He now has selective blindness towards your question on how they mismanage funds continously, on brain staggering decisions. Decisions that are enough to send people to jail, decisions that have far eclipsed whatever witch claim allegations they used as a metric to fire and demonize Maldini.
👍 that guy knows football.
Chrisp.
You are blowing my mind man. I have read all your analysis on this topic.
Bravo brotha bravo🙏🙇♂️🔥💯🙌
The best thing is to appoint Albertini he has the necessary qualifications, has the experience of working as a DS for Parma, and has worked in multiple managerial roles for the Italian federation, and he also knows the club intimately, and understands what is need to create a winning circle and project, and he is completely free….with loads of personality and Charisma…
That is a good idea for the reasons you enlist. Probably not a yes-man hence not an option for this management and ownership.
Shut up about Maldini. We need an SD in 2025. Please help. And yes, if “Maldini” is gonna come out of your mouth. Shut up.
Scudetto with less budget. I am not speaking any name.
hahaham, brilliant trolling, Moshi is gonna love it.
Talking about bringing in necessary money from CL, don’t forget the semis.
Maldini is what we need and we should have kept him.
Maldini is what we need and we should have kept him.
Did you know, that the name of Maldini is an anagram of Di Milan = Of Milan. Makes you think twice about Milan and Maldini.
The American sh*tshow continues. They will never learn beacuse they don’t want to. They’re so full of themselves thinking they can continue the way they are. They’re driving this club into the ground with their inflated and fragile egos. Worst ownership and management ever.
I remember I once read an article about Maldini sacking. One of the reasons why he was sacked was because the model of one person made all the decision is deemed old fashioned by Cardinale, he prefers to made the decision together. Now we see tue consequences of that action.
these so called business men owner and their inability to make decision.. smh, day by day they just look dumberer.
Sick of this cretin furlani.
Everything he touches becomes melodrama.
He is so incompetent that he never takes a decision though he thinks he is god!!!!
How is it possible that cardinale stands him? But then of course he is imposed upon milan by the elliott bunch
I really dont understand why it is taking this much time to appoint a sporting director. By now they should already have appoint one and started planning for the next season regarding potential signings, headcoach and overall strategy moving forward. This is just plain and spimle time wasting…