Gerry Cardinale does not regularly speak to the media at length about his plans for AC Milan, but last night he took the opportunity to provide a few updates.
La Gazzetta dello Sport (via MilanNews) recall that Cardinale spoke in London at the ‘Business of Football’ event put on by the Financial Times. The Milan owner was interviewed by James Fontanella-Khan on stage and was asked many questions about his strategy.
The main takeaway is that Cardinale has shown he is very determined to build a new stadium, once again reiterating publicly that it is a priority for the club at the moment. The main man of RedBird Capital said the construction of a new facility is crucial in his vision of sport intertwined with business.
Specifically, he underlined two important things. The first is the area where to build the new stadium: “In the ideal world, staying in the area of the Council of Milan is a priority.” So the will is to remain in the city and this also explains the strong interest in La Maura as the main plan B with respect to the Cathedral.
Then he also spoke about the relationship with Inter: “I’m a great supporter of being independent but as of today there’s nothing we’re ruling out.” This is a pretty strong clue that the club would like to build alone.
Cardinale was also able to speak about what attracted him to buying Milan and his motivations for the future: “In Milan there is a phenomenal fan base. The fans have done their job, now it’s our turn.”
His goal is to invest in Italian football and to invest in Milan to bring them back to being considered one of Europe’s elite, taking advantage of all his business knowledge deriving from the experience in the United States.
To do this, though, his idea is to continue in the footsteps traced by Elliott Management in recent years: “One of the points of the business plan is continuity with Elliott, RedBird has 100% shares to go ahead and get to the next step, we hired two top managers who come from Elliott but who offered themselves to them by raising their hand and I’m talking about Furlani as CEO and Cocirio as CFO.”
