AC Milan president Paolo Scaroni has explained why the current San Siro cannot be renovated and also why there will be more corporate seats at the new stadium.
There are a number of key issues that must be ironed out in relation to the new stadium such as the capacity, given that Milan have had over 70,000 fans present at all bar one home game this season, which makes the decision to have a new home with maximum of 60-65,000 seem quite a prohibitive move.
When clubs abroad build new stadiums or renovate their current ones, the Rossoneri and Nerazzurri have chosen the opposite path by aiming to always fill the stadium and sell more executive tickets at higher prices, thereby increasing revenues. Today 4% of the San Siro (3,000 or maximum 3,500 seats) are corporate, but that will become 9,000 basic (15%) at least and may even become 13,500 at the new stadium.
Scaroni spoke during the latest meeting in the public debate process and he answered some questions related to the new project that Milan aim to carry out along with Inter. MilanNews relayed his comments.
On ticket prices for the new stadium: “In order to continue to offer our fans cheap tickets at the stadium, at today’s price level, we need to build a part in the new stadium that we call corporate that offers companies seats to be able to attend an event in a completely different way than today, as happens all over the world.
“We expect between 8 and 10 thousand corporate seats, with prices that will have nothing to do with the prices for the public, offering companies and sponsors a whole show. On the one hand it improves the club finances and on the other hand it allows us to maintain the price for the fans, I am thinking for example of the Curva Sud, which will have advantageous entry conditions within their reach.”
On competitiveness in Europe: “There is incredible competitiveness in the world of football in Europe: the two Milanese clubs want to continue to be leaders in European football. It is not enough to be in Italy, we want Milan to play an important role in European football. But it is difficult without financial means to compete at those levels.
“When we tackled the stadium project, we faced all the hypotheses including restructuring it. We analysed the situation with experts and stadium technicians, one of the reasons we decided not to renovate it was that it would never have become the stadium that these years require for clubs like ours. San Siro as it is could not be renovated for the third time, so we discarded this hypothesis.”
On the new stadium: “We put our experts to work, assuming a new stadium at San Siro that meets all the economic and financial requirements. We have 1.3 billion in investment in mind, an important figure that we would spend on public land with a capital that would be foreign, given that our two clubs are foreign owned.
“And we will continue to have, while the stadium is being built, a competitive activity that will allow us to continue to have revenues and continue to maintain Milan as the capital of Italian football.”
On the comparison with Chelsea: “We lost to Chelsea yesterday, I don’t want to talk about football but about money: Chelsea collects from the stadium more than double what Milan collects. I was at Stamford Bridge, I saw how it is structured that among other things it is in central London, it certainly does not have the spaces of other facilities but in any case Chelsea is clearly more than double that of Milan.
“Competing with clubs that have much higher financial means than ours makes us leave in a state of inferiority. Money is not everything, but it plays a very big role. We want to equip Milan and Inter with a stadium that allows us to have revenues and offer the spectacle that our European competitors have.”
