SM: Why speculation that Milan prefer signing players from Lille is false

L’Equipe today launched an investigation into the intricate and complex system of ownership that would link Milan, Lille and Elliott Management.

Without going into the merits of the question, it is important to clarify those who – perhaps in bad faith – tend to say that the Milan market is totally focused around players owned by the aforementioned French club, perhaps leading to some kind of exploitation.

As our colleagues at SempreMilan.it report, Renato Sanches and Sven Botman are still only names launched by the media and while Rafael Leao and Mike Maignan both arrived from the Ligue 1 club, they did so two years apart from each other.

As highlighted on Twitter by Matteo Vismara, the Rossoneri have therefore carried out the same number of transactions with Lille also with Empoli (Bennacer and Krunic), Real Madrid (Theo Hernandez and Brahim Diaz) and even more with Chelsea (Tomori, Giroud and Bakayoko).

This does not detract from the fact that the relations between the ownership of Lille and that of Milan are excellent, but when the French side really needed to raise money by selling stars like Nicolas Pepé and Victor Osimhen, they went elsewhere.

Alla cortese attenzione,
Acquisti del Milan dal Lille:
– Leao e Maignan

Altri acquisti:
– Tonali (Brescia)
– Theo e Diaz (Real Madrid)
– Bennacer e Krunic (Empoli)
– Tomori e Giroud (Chelsea)
– Saelemaekers (Anderlecht)
– Adli (Bordeaux)
– Florenzi (Roma)

And counting… https://t.co/NM7EkOr19n

— Matteo Vismara (@TeoVisma) April 15, 2022