Journalist Tancredi Palmeri believes that the fact the owners of AC Milan are searching for additional funding is actually a worrying sign.
It was reported in La Repubblica yesterday that PIF – the Saudi-backed Public Investment Fund – are interested in acquiring a majority stake in Milan and they want to do so by the end of the season.
They spoke of an almost total acquisition rather than just buying a minority stake as had been previously reported, while adding that Milan were valued in the summer of 2022 at €1.2bn when they were taken over but are now worth around €1.6bn.
What has ‘unofficially’ filtered from Milan, RedBird and Gerry Cardinale regarding the story that there is no intention to sell the majority shares of the club to the PIF fund in the short term.
Now, Tancredi Palmeri gave an update from outside San Siro regarding the indiscretion from Repubblica, speaking in his weekly column for Sportitalia.
“Milan also came to the desert. [They] Look for camels, also called money, through which to finance the project. And the message is not reassuring. Because the financing that Cardinale needs is not something worth a few million, sponsor stuff so to speak,” he began.
“Cardinale is looking for substantial shareholders. The problem is that those to whom Cardinale turned – assuming they accept or not – are actors who are never satisfied with playing non-protagonists.
“The Arabs from all over the world, wherever they enter, do so to command, there is not even an example of Arabs who have put heavy money into football by limiting themselves to being part of the subsidisers.
“Cardinale’s difficulty is therefore real: there will be a loan to be repaid with interest to Elliott, the stadium cannot be unlocked, we need oxygen so as not to be forced to lose.
“But if that type of offer arrived – and it’s another big if, indeed the biggest of all – Cardinale wouldn’t even be convinced to sell, convinced/deluded that the stadium project could start, repaying what is owed to Ellliott.
“A no that Cardinale would keep until circumstances force him to do otherwise, a wait however at the expense of the time Milan needs. A stalemate. A crossing in the desert.”
