AC Milan will soon be able to announce a crucial renewal as an agreement with Tijjani Reijnders has been reached, a report claims.
In recent months, Manchester City and Barcelona have been linked with a move for Reijnders given how impressive his season has been, but De Telegraaf in the Netherlands report that he will commit his future to Milan.
They cite sources close to the club in stating that a renewal is close, adding that lawyers are now working draft up the agreement that was reached between the father-agent of the midfielder and the directors.
Reijnders, who arrived at the Rossoneri in the summer of 2023 from AZ Alkmaar for €20.5m, is expected to sign his new contract at the beginning of March, which will make him one of the highest paid players in the Milan squad.
The negotiations to reach this agreement took time, there were several conversations and a long exchange of emails, but in the end the handshake arrived. The deal will run until 2030, which is a two-year extension.
Since he arrived at the club, Reijnders has grown into an undroppable player both for Milan and his national team. There will be no release clause in his new deal, the report adds, so any interested club would have to put forward a huge offer in theory.
He’s been our co-best player this year for sure.
That said is Gerry really gonna turn down 75-80 mil for him? I’m skeptical.
“That said is Gerry really gonna turn down 75-80 mil for him? I’m skeptical.”
What’s your evidence for that? The only controversial big sale of a great player we’ve had since Gerry owns the club was Tonali’s and the money was immediately reinvested into new buys (misguided ones, but that’s not the point). And remember, we dodged a bullet there. It is conceivable that Milan had a hint about his gambling problem and decided to get rid of him. There is no evidence for that either (because, if true, it would be necessarily a well-guarded secret given that no Milan officer would disclose it, otherwise it would open the door to a lawsuit by Newcastle) but the timing is suspicious.
Other than the Tonali case, no big star got sold, so far, in Gerry’s tenure. Players who left either weren’t part of the coach’s project or asked to leave, themselves (like Bennacer, Simic, and Giroud). Other departures like Adli, Okafor, Calabria, and Messias, were all players the head coach at the time no longer wanted. There were blunders like shipping out Kalulu but the money was (misguidedly, but again that’s not the point) immediately reinvested into getting Emerson.
I don’t think that there is any evidence that Gerry is trying to personally profit from player sales. I think his strategy is a different one. He wants to work on the stadium project and he refinanced the vendor’s loan. I think he aims at cashing in by selling the entire club once the stadium project pushes the value of the club up. I think he will sell either back to Elliot (by not meeting the 2028 deadline for the vendor’s loan and allowing the club to be repossessed and recovering his personal investment at that point), or better for him, sell to another buyer like a sovereign fund. If he can, he will meet the deadline or will refinance again.
Player sales revenue is a fraction of what he can get by developing the brand, pushing up the club’s value, and selling the entire club.
People who think Gerry is interested in profiting from selling players don’t really understand how the finances of owning a major club work.
Just look at how pretty much all profits from selling players have been immediately reinvested into getting new players instead of going towards Gerry’s personal finances.
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I agree with you that Reijnders is currently our co-best player together with Pulisic. The fact that Milan is committed to renewing him and he is turning down the likes of ManCity and Barcelona, confirm what I’m saying: the owner has no interest in pushing out Reijnders in order to personally profit from the sale.
I am all about Cardinale out. Just focusing on the Tonali sale: it resulted in bringing in Reijnders, Pulisic and Loftus Cheek. 2 are our new best 2 players given the dip in form of our big 3, and Loftus scored 10+ goals last season. Granted Loftus looks to have played his one good season with us.
Like you all say, at this point it’s not even about the quality of the players, there is plenty for a top four finish and then some if it was done correctly. It is about having a stable project outside of promoting interesting new t-shirts and novel co-marketing strategies with Tequila brands partly owned by the owners, to drive revenue. Driving up revenues was absolutely necessary given the death spiral of the post Berlusconi era, but it didn’t need to come at the expense of everything else which it did and often does when the unhidden, sole purpose of a business is $.
Well I’m not saying he would be doing it for his own personal profit. That’s not the point.
Gerry’s endgame is to build up the commercial profile of Milan and then sell it. Obviously part of that equation is having a competitive team that is in the CL and winning trophies. The biggest part of that however is the stadium. A venue that can host concerts and NFL games and whatever else. He’s an investor. And he’s backed by investors. Investors want ROI. And in this case that comes when they cash out.
Back to Tiji. As your rightly say the sale of Tonali funded two of our best players now. If Gerry thinks he can do the same thing again for more money this time, but use it to buy 3-4 future starters with a more seasoned DS then I think he considers it. Increase the profit, lower the wage bill. Make the books look better. It’s all part of the playbook.
I guess you’re right that no other stars have been sold……yet. But they accepted a 50 mil offer for Theo from Como. So they would’ve gladly sold him. Lots of rumbling now about selling Rafa and Maignan as well. And Rafa’s buyout clause is over. If they get 80 mil for him he’s gone too. Guaranteed.
We shall see.
^^ Not to mention they cut bait on CDK with Atalanta as soon as it looked like they could break even on him.
I’d say that is in the same playbook. Pulled the plug on that experiment very quickly. If he’d show something, anything that first year and they could’ve flipped him for 60 mil they would have.
No one believed in CDK anymore. I doubt that Gerry made any decisions on his case.
“People who think Gerry is interested in profiting from selling players don’t really understand how the finances of owning a major club work.”
This. You could try to bang that in their heads with a hammer and they’d still think the club’s money equals owner’s money and the money the club gets for player magically goes into the owner’s pockets.
Good. Build the future squad around him, Pulisic, Pavlovic, Gimenez, and Fofana.
I’m surprised he agreed to renew given what a sh!+show Milan has become… He could be at a functional club actually competing for trophies.
That’s what we called Rossonero. Like Pirlo, Gattuso, Seedorf, Ambrosini, Maldini
Yea but that was a functional team full of vital cogs who won CL.
What is this Milan?
Cannot believe the roles switched and I’d be the one saying to you, Reijnders is a kid who has his head firmly on his shoulders, while you’re all over this messed up management. But here we are🤣
Ain’t that the truth…
You’re right, Reijnders is humble, keeps his head down and works every game. Credit to his parents for that work ethic. Wish we had more players like that.
@ACM1899 who said: “I’m surprised he agreed to renew given what a sh!+show Milan has become… He could be at a functional club actually competing for trophies.”
Maybe Tijjani thinks that this big mess has an expiration date and the squad will get better and more competitive next season.
I think one light at the end of the tunnel is that Gerry is now trying to bring in a proper sporting director.
I believe that selling players and rebuilding the squad with new purchases, and/or firing the coach and hiring a new coach, while likely necessary in some combination, will just be an invitation for more mistakes by the existing incompetent managers if the leadership at the top doesn’t change. If we do bring in a competent sporting director though, things can slowly but surely start to change.
It’s from the top down that positive change will come. Our problems do exist from bottom up too, as some players share responsibility for our current failures (huge individual mistakes have been costing us points, like the older ones by Emerson and the newer ones by Mike, Theo, Gabbia, and Musah; even Puli missed a PK; Rafa has been very inconsistent), and from mid-range too as the coach has had his share of failures as well (e.g., insisting with João Félix; chickening out in the last 20 minutes of the Derby) but I think that mismanagement from the top is a much bigger problem given that the squad is poorly built.
Maybe Reijnders thinks so too and is confident that things will get better for the 2025/2026 season, with a new sporting director, and the opportunity for whoever will be coaching Milan to work with the management for a good summer mercato and having the benefit of the off-season to work with the players; that’s something that Conceição has not benefited from, and I think that if we keep him, it is conceivable that he will slowly improve the team. If we don’t keep him, the new coach will have that opportunity.
We are at such a low point that it’s hard to think of going further down; the only way is up, and maybe that’s what Tijjani hopes for.
Reijnders has nothing to lose. His performances even at this dysfunctional Milan raise his stock. If RedBird doesn’t pull its head out of its @$$ and straighten this thing out, Reijnders can always jump to a more promising project.
I love the kid. I think he’s close to Kaka than Felix will ever be. But loyalty to a club is rare these days and players wan to win trophies during their relatively short careers. So I would completely understand if he pursued that.
Hopefully Milan can turn things around timely enough to keep The Dutchman.