AC Milan are the only top Italian club who have the financial capacity to invest without selling and this is reflected in their summer budget, a report claims.
According to MilanNews, Milan are looking for a starting striker, defensive midfielder, centre-back and right-back this summer and the management will have a figure of around €90-100m in order to find those players, which has been broken down.
In case you missed it, over on our Substack we analysed the predictions for the 2023-24 accounts and what this means for the availability to spend during the upcoming mercato, which is available as a free read and confirmed the numbers.
Of course the numbers given above must only serve as an indication, as a sort of guideline in view of the mercato, because there are complex and in-depth discussions to be had regarding the cost of the squad, divided between depreciation and salary amounts.
There will be around €70m in total depreciations this year, while another €19m will come from the farewells of Olivier Giroud, Simon Kjaer, Mattia Caldara and Antonio Mirante. The sales of Rade Krunic and Junior Messias plus the increasingly probable one of Charles De Ketelaere boost the budget even more.
In a nutshell, Milan have the strong possibility of investing given by two factors: creation of further space in the budget through exits plus a notable cash flow given by the various revenues.
How does that work with regards to Financial Fair Play? Clubs participating in UEFA competitions can have a squad cost equal to, at most, 80% of revenues (next year it will drop to 70). Milan are well below that limit, with a cost of around €225m and revenues of about €450m.
It is even permitted for Milan to make a €60m loss as we explained in our piece, but that is not something that is likely to happen because the owner will always start each summer from the desire not to go into the red again.
It has been a trend that revenues have grown, but without a club-owned stadium they do not do so quickly, and without that the club could therefore enter a loop that requires capital gains every year to ‘justify’ this difference in revenues. Otherwise, deep European runs would be needed.
This is certainly what everyone hopes for, but it is also important to understand that an ownership group must reduce the risk to a minimum. Relying on something as volatile as sports performance would be a beginner’s mistake, even if ambition is expected too.