AC Milan president Paolo Scaroni and CEO Ivan Gazidis both share excitement regarding how the club can and aim to move forward under RedBird Capital and their main man Gerry Cardinale.
The €1.2bn takeover of Milan by the American fund RedBird was completed at the back end of August and news is starting to emerge regarding how the club will be taken forward given the current crossroads after reducing the costs of the playing squad while also attempting to challenge for trophies.
Scaroni spoke at the shareholders’ meeting this morning in which the 2021-22 accounts were talked through and approved, and he also answered some questions. The president was first asked about Gerry Cardinale’s comments in recent days where he expressed his intention to ‘shake’ things up a bit.
“We have a shareholder who, in the interest of Milan, wants to make the most of his team’s skills. There are 7-8-9 sports professionals,” he began.
“I believe that Milan can benefit from this shareholder on all fronts, which brings us a range of skills that we did not have. We are all very optimistic to have a new phase of growth of the brand, of the club and of everything we do. I am confident that we are living now, after the recovery phase.”
Gazidis also gave a question and answer session at the end of the shareholders’ meeting that took place at Casa Milan, with his comments on Cardinale’s aims for the club moving forward relayed by MilanNews.
“RedBird have great expertise in all areas of sport, particularly commercial, and fan relations. They are learning, they understand very well that football is different in the USA: they have experiences with Liverpool and Toulouse and they have to listen and learn for a while,” he said.
“They believe that there are many things that bring this environment to Italian football, and I do too: there are many things that we need to improve if we want to grow. The RedBird experience will change not only the future of Milan, but also of Italian football.”
