Cardinale: I want to sign the ‘best players in the world’, I’ll ‘never’ sell Milan
Milan owner Gerry Cardinale says the RedBird-backed holding company will give the Rossoneri the ‘financial power to compete in the transfer market’ and adds, ‘I’ll never sell’ the club.
RedBird Capital Partners launched a holding company on Friday to bring together its Milan-based investments, which include not only Milan but also the emerging NBA Europe project, in which Milan are expected to take part with their own team, and more.
“The driving force behind transactions like this is to provide Milan with the financial firepower required to compete in the transfer market to secure the best players in the world,” Cardinale told Gazzetta.
“I will transform the club’s financial profile with the resources that will come from the stadium, from the arena in San Donato and from the other activities we are working on, such as NBA Europe.
“I am doing everything possible to ensure that, when we want a footballer, nobody can tell me: ‘You can’t sign him because you can’t afford him.’ Right now, only Premier League clubs are able to invest certain sums and secure top players,” Cardinale added.
“If I want to bring Milan back to the top in European competitions, not just in Italy, we have to figure out how to compete with the biggest clubs in the world.”
The newly-launched holding also confirms that Cardinale’s Milan project is long-term.
“Yes. I will never sell Milan. Ever,” he stated.
“And this is a project to get it back to winning ways. I am not willing to tolerate it taking a long time to achieve that. I want to do it as soon as possible. We’ll see how quickly. My goal is to win Scudetti consistently and, naturally, return to the Champions League. Milan Sports & Entertainment is the foundation that makes all of this possible.
“This is the legacy we will leave to Milan. The stadium, obviously, represents a massive legacy that will transform our financial profile, but then there is also the project for the San Donato area and everything else,” he added.
“If we want Milan to become great again, we have to bridge the revenue gap with Premier League clubs. When I bought the club four years ago, I used the expression ‘Berlusconi 2.0’ and nobody understood what I meant. Now perhaps it’s beginning to show.”
Cardinale aims not just to bring Milan back to the top of Italian football, but also to be a driving force for Serie A and Italian football.
“Everyone thought I was making an arrogant, self-centred comparison between myself and Berlusconi, but that was not my aim. What I was trying to explain was that, just as Berlusconi transformed Milan and, at the same time, Serie A, we want, through our ownership, to take the club into the new era we are living in,” he said.
“And it has to be done in the same way Berlusconi did it, but in a new way. I am used to working in a certain way because that is how I operate, at the highest levels in the world and in America.
“Of course, for Serie A as well. In my view, it would not have been a good deal to sell 30% of its international commercial rights when the JP Morgan offer came in. That is not how Serie A can get back to the top in Europe. It must be done through business planning and creating every opportunity to generate new revenue. Just as we will do with Milan Sports & Entertainment.
“We will be the first to build a stadium [alongside Inter] since 2011, and that is a huge achievement. I have been working on it since I bought Milan, and finally… the right moment has come.”
How about the NBA Europe project?
“I think the NBA is negotiating with EuroLeague, but one way or another, if they fail to reach an agreement, NBA Europe will start anyway. Perhaps at the end of the year or in the early months of 2027, the first group of new franchises for Europe will be announced. We’ll see when it happens,” Cardinale explained.
“In San Donato, we own the land, and if I am granted the franchise for Milan, I can start work fairly quickly because we already have planning permission for a 20,000-seat arena. Furthermore, we will continue to explore opportunities and have discussions in the tennis world, including organising a tournament in Milan. Finally, we are already making progress in building and launching a hospitality and venue management company.”
The new project also includes managing hospitality services for other stadiums, not just San Siro or the new Generali Stadium.
“The model is the company I created in 2009, called Legends Hospitality,” Cardinale concluded.
“I did that together with the New York Yankees and the Dallas Cowboys. Today that company is a multi-billion-dollar business. We sell premium seats, suites, merchandise, hospitality, and food and beverage services for Yankee Stadium and Cowboys Stadium, as well as for other clubs. I would like to adopt the same model here, probably in partnership with another club.”
Cardinale acquired Milan for €1.2 billion in the summer of 2022, just a few weeks after the Rossoneri’s title victory.
