The Mayor of Milan Giuseppe Sala has confirmed that AC Milan and Inter have rejected the idea of renovating San Siro but now seem open to re-exploring the idea of building a new home near it.
It had been previously established that Milan and Inter intended to move away from the Giuseppe Meazza, with the red half of the city planning to build in San Donato and the blue half towards Rozzano.
The City Council will never likely to let the two clubs walk away without a fight and thus a project was launched with the plan to save San Siro. They enlisted the help of WeBuild, who pitched a €300m project that would bring the nearly 100-year-old structure up to modern standards.
A meeting took place at the city hall today that was expected to provide some clarity on the intentions of the Rossoneri and the Nerazzurri regarding the project put in front of them, and it has indeed provided just that.
At the end of the discussion with Milan and Inter at Palazzo Marino on the issue of the future of San Siro, Mayor Sala announced what the two clubs have decided, with MilanNews relaying his comments.
“The meeting with the two teams has just finished, with both the management of the clubs and the owners or representatives of the owners present,” he began.
“They came to me, and let me say as a premise to everything, I note that even with the new ownership of Inter, the agreement and unity of purpose of its teams at the moment is very strong, and this is a positive thing in itself.
“The two teams told me long analyses of technical and economic feasibility regarding the hypothesis of renovating San Siro. Fundamentally starting from the WeBuild project, but essentially trying to include realistic restructuring hypotheses.
“After long analyses they came to the conclusion that it is not renovatable, or at least it is not renovatable at affordable costs, and therefore they do not consider the San Siro hypothesis as it had been thought in recent months to be feasible.
“Their proposal at this point is to return to the idea of a new stadium in the San Siro area. You all know that it is a very long process, I was reviewing all the documents today, I reviewed four council resolutions, a public debate, a resolution in the city council, our resistance to the idea of the referendum.
“So there is a lot of work behind it, seeing it positively means that we are not starting from scratch but from a series of actions already done and also from a very precise expression of the will of the city council.
“This is the idea. To be able to say with certainty that we will proceed in this direction, there are three things that the teams are asking for and one that I am asking for.
“The teams are asking for these three things: 1) what exactly is the value of San Siro and the areas, since they are clear that this evaluation was entrusted with a formal charge that was made at the beginning of August to the revenue agency. We are expecting an initial evaluation in the coming days, which I repeat, with a view to the transfer of the stadium and areas to the teams.
“The first half is exactly what value it is, starting from the assumption that it is clear that that value is on the one hand a constraint, because we cannot give in even for a matter of administrative responsibility to a lower value, but we have no intention of speculating on that value. The value that there will be is the law for us.
“Second question: to understand in more detail the constraint of the superintendency in view of a change of ownership and if the stadium becomes the teams’. In this regard, we have already scheduled a meeting with the superintendency and the teams for next week.
“The third request, in light of all this, is the timing for the operation. So starting from today, the timing from now until they can become owners of the stadium and areas. They must present us with a project in a fairly short time, where the project contains on the one hand the new stadium.
“On the other a redevelopment of San Siro regarding which I cannot anticipate anything because they are working on it, but regarding this the two teams have shown great availability. These are the three things that Milan and Inter have asked us: value, constraint of the superintendency and timing.”
No surprise really.
Despite the fact it is cheaper to renovate and keep the iconic san siro, and be owned by the clubs.
The fact is, Gerry bought Milan because he wants to build a stadium. He will award that contract to his own company, making hundreds of millions in profit.
Money that will come from a huge debt burden around the neck of the club and therefore supporters.
If we think we are balancing books now, just wait until we are making payments on a new stadium!
New stadium that is our own, is essential.
Thats what we need.
What are you saying? Cardinale owns a construction company too? Also, stadiums are not free. Finally, Juventus, Atalanta, Sassuolo and any other club in Europe that owns its own modern stadium has shown us the benefits. It is stupid and impossible to continue in an obsolete structure we do not own. If they can tear down Wembley and build something better, we can do the same with San Siro. Arsenal tore down Highbury and now they’re flying, almost becoming the biggest challenger to City at the moment. It took time, they financed their own stadium and had to be frugal for a few years. But once that was mostly paid off they started spending and now have a top coach and exicting talented young players. This is how I see us. Rome wasn’t built in a day or for free, but people don’t seem to get this.
Yes Jerry has stated clearly how they are experts in building stadiums, it’s a money making move for redbird, whats best for the club is not what they are concerned about.
We are being offered the san siro for 100m with renovation of 300m divided by 2 clubs who will then own the stadium.
This is obviously the cheapest, fastest and best way to move forward
“Yes Jerry has stated clearly how they are experts in building stadiums, it’s a money making move for redbird, whats best for the club is not what they are concerned about.” So you’d rather have an someone who has zero experience in stadium development to build a stadium? It’s crazy to say that a new stadium isn’t in the club’s interest. Does Redbird benefit? Yes. Ok, so what? If we sign Haaland and Vinicius Jr and whoever else we win the CL, the club benefits….and so does the owner, no? Like, in what weird universe are we successful without the owner benefiting from that success? The only negative and unacceptable outcome is if the owner benefits without the club benefitting. I see no situation that results in a new stadium benefiting the owner and not benefiting the club.
“We are being offered the san siro for 100m with renovation of 300m divided by 2 clubs who will then own the stadium.”
I mean, clearly BOTH clubs don’t think so. This isn’t a “Gerry thing”, Oaktree doesn’t like this idea either. Why? Probable because the 300M renovation will still be unsatisfactory, and you might as well use that towards a 900M completely new stadium. It’s like renovating a house vs. building a new one from the ground up. You can put as much money as you like into the renovation, but the original layout, foundation and framing will always limit what you can do. Building a brand new structure from the ground up is the only way to maximize everything. -From someone who has done both.
In regards to other clubs, Arsenal wanted a bigger stadium, we will build a smaller one.
Madrid did up Bernebeau, its amazing now.
Why? Because it is their spiritual home as SS is ours
Indeed, but Madrid was not constrained by some stupid monuments law. They could do what they needed to bring the stadium up to standard. There also many factors that go into this. Bernabeu’s original structuring might have made it easy to renovate/add-on to it to begin with. Madrid are not stupid, if they had to totally demolish Bernabeu to build something completely new, they would have. Have you been to San Siro? I have. It’s not an obviously renovatable stadium. Quite the opposite, hence why both clubs have rejected the WeBuild option.
As often is the case, you give an excellent answer.
I have been to san siro several times over the years (i dont live in Italy)
It is the best atmosphere i have ever seen, and I’ve seen some good ones (Maracana, Neu Camp, Munich).
I’ve heard that from many football passionate people too.
You see the cbs coverage with Henry, Carragher and Richards, they are in awe of the place, like they were in awe meeting Maldini.
Thats a powerful tool to inspire your team and intimidate your opponents.
You sound like you’re worried about the owner and will make anything negative
But once this is done we’re golden. Gotta have our own house