AC Milan might well break their transfer record this summer because they know that they need to invest big in a striker, according to a report.
This morning’s edition of Tuttosport (via MilanNews) has a section dedicated to Milan’s plans ahead of 2024-25, titled: ‘Cardinale turning point: a record-breaking coup is needed for the striker’.
The management plan to make a major investment in the summer to sign a top centre-forward, especially given that Olivier Giroud might well leave for the MLS and Luka Jovic’s deal is expiring.
How much exactly is a ‘major investment’, though? As the paper points out, Milan have never paid over €50m to sign a player in their history. The closest they have come is with Rafael Leao.
He was signed from Lille in the summer of 2019 for around €30m, but after the Sporting CP fine was settled through an addition payment to the French side in the summer of 2023, that cost rose to €49.5m.
The Portuguese winger thus rose to number one in the all-time ranking for Milan, ahead of the €42m that they spent on Manuel Rui Costa and Leonardo Bonucci.
Who might the striker be that arrives? Joshua Zirkzee, Viktor Gyokeres, Benjamin Sesko and Santiago Gimenez are in their sights, with the former appearing to be first on the list also because he already knows Serie A.
Yeah it’s not like we’re living in the start of 2000s right. It’s 2024 now and everything goes up 😀 except for mid or low table teams
Problem is, to pay the same net salary to a player moving from outside Italy, it will now cost Milan an extra 60%.
So I think that ultimately will reduce the max available transfer spend by some €20m for someone on a 4-5 year contract.
When they removed the growth decree and did not replace it with something else, it was bad for all of Italian football.
Other countries continue to have significant advantages to signing players.
The side effect of this is, Italy is currently set to receive another CL slot based on Italian teams tournament performances. Italy is not way above other countries, and a reduction in top players could see Italy drop out of the race to get extra CL slots or even lose existing ones.
Italy is already a feeder league to the premier league these days, removal of the growth decree just confirmed and ensured it stays that way.
The whole league is being run by dinosaurs holding on to power the best they can. Abolition of growth decree is not directly about promoting youth development, but rather about getting more money in the pockets from taxes on foreign players… ‘Youth Promotion” is just what they hide behind.
Instead of taking steps forward, FIGC and LEGA Serie A are taking active steps backwards.
The right to televise the games that were sold, weren’t even to the highest bidder… Instead of developing a platform to directly stream the games, monetize on it, market and promote the sh*t out of it like EPL does, the sell it off to then not to have to actively do anything about it.
ITS. A. JOKE.
And at this rate, I don’t know how long Serie A is gonna last before the big clubs are forced into The Super League…
I thought Milan bought Nesta for 50 million euros in 2001
It’s 31mil in the beginning of 2000s
One sale of any of the ‘big three’ or maybe Tomori would be able to fund a sizeable transfer anyway.
And if the scouts and negotiators can’t find a player to improve the team for that amount of money then they’re not doing their job correctly. Maybe Gyokeres, Sesko and David will all move to England and the updates tax laws will make it harder to pay the same wages, but there must be opportunities out there.
Stop showing out best players the door. We want to keep our squad and continue building on that. Jeez, what a bunch of plastic fans
no more Growth Decree… remember? 50mil is not happening.
If prior purchases are taken into account, it’s more likely to get two emerging strikers at 25-30 mill than to get a striker at 50+ million.
In this context, is much more likely to get a sriker from PL having a bad season, than a top striker from a lower league.
We might also sell Maignan for cash + striker and/or get a striker on loan + option (Broja might be an option that we get back to).
All said, the striker choice is likely tomake or break our next season.