The whole AC Milan world has been rocked by the news that club icon Paolo Maldini has been sacked from his role as sporting director with Ricky Massara to follow in what feels like a real ‘Big Bang’ moment in RedBird Capital’s early tutelage.
Sometimes features age very badly, which is part and parcel of being a journalist of course, but it is worth recapping what was written back on May 25 and having either a chuckle or a wince, whatever comes more naturally.
Around a fortnight ago I wrote about how stability could be Milan’s biggest weapon heading into next season given that the club seemed to have a solid management in place, with obvious gaps to address but with some order and continuity to everything.
One of the themes touched upon was the need for a very frank discussion between owner Gerry Cardinale, CEO Giorgio Furlani, the directors Paolo Maldini and Ricky Massara, chief scout Geoffrey Moncada and the head coach Stefano Pioli.
The vision was that Pioli would highlight the holes in his squad and the types of players that will be most compatible with his system, the parameters in which to operate (transfer and wage budget, mainly) would be affirmed by Cardinale, then Moncada, Maldini and Massara can get to work identifying the right profiles.
Oh how we can now laugh. That frank discussion happened alright, and it resulted in what can only be described cataclysmic change in direction.
Through a statement on their official website earlier today, Milan confirmed Maldini’s departure and one is expected to follow for Massara too, meaning the club are now without a technical director and a sporting director.
Body of work
Before discussing the circumstances that led to this point more specifically, it would be amiss of us not to highlight the work that was done and not done by Maldini during his four-year tenure as the technical director of the club.
From the summer of 2019 when he officially became the man calling the shots, 34 signings were made and you can read the full list in chronological order here. Ranking each success and failure is something that deserves its own deep-dive, but it does feel important to highlight the merits and drawbacks of his work.
For starters, nobody can argue with the fact that the core of the side was put in place on Maldini and Massara’s watch, starting with Mike Maignan, Malick Thiaw, Fikayo Tomori, Pierre Kalulu and Theo Hernandez in the rearguard.
Sandro Tonali and Ismael Bennacer have become the midfield pairing of the future with Rade Krunic showing himself to be a reliable reserve, while the likes of Alexis Saelemaekers and Brahim Diaz even gave more in contribution than what the costs of their respective deals suggested they would.
Then of course there is Rafael Leao, who has grown from being a raw talent when arriving from Lille to become last season’s Serie A MVP and without doubt the most valuable asset in the squad at present.
What is worth mentioning is that Maldini made these signings with help (the scouting of Geoffrey Moncada above all) but also with some handcuffs, given the dire economic situation the club were in when he took the helm.
During his time as technical director, the Rossoneri’s revenues began to grow more and more within a virtuous and sustainable path, and consequently moves were made to keep the core pieces for the future together.
Since the start of 2022, Maldini and Massara successfully negotiated the contract extensions of Theo Hernandez, Matteo Gabbia, Tommaso Pobega, Fikayo Tomori, Rade Krunic, Sandro Tonali, Pierre Kalulu, Ismael Bennacer, Olivier Giroud and Rafael Leao, plus head coach Stefano Pioli.
However, for this to be an objective assessment of what the directors have done there needs to be an element of balance, and not everything that was done can be regarded as a success.
Part of the reason Maldini and Massara were working with a limited budget was because they had a chronic issue selling players to raise the budget and free up wages, with four exits in particular standing out over two summers.
Taking a look at Transfermarkt’s estimates, the market value of Franck Kessie, Alessio Romagnoli, Hakan Calhanoglu and Gianluigi Donnarumma would today amount to around €130m in total, but instead Milan did not get a penny from their farewells.
Not every signing contributed in the way expected, and some were an outright disaster. The likes of Mario Mandzukic, Soualiho Meite, Pietro Pellegri and Marko Lazetic arrived and did/have done next to nothing.
Then, of course, we come to the summer 2022 transfer window and the weeks preceding.
Warning signs
Cast your minds back to the end of last season. AC Milan had just ended their 11-year Scudetto drought with a 3-0 win away against Sassuolo in the last game of the 2022-23 season to beat rivals Inter to the title.
Very faintly in the background while the champagne was being sprayed and the trophy hoisted aloft, there were rumours that Elliott Management were about to sell the club and thus end an era that had only really just started.
Five days later, Maldini gave a fascinating interview regarding his own future and that of the club after being crowned champions and it was the first glimpse we got that made it obvious things were not one hundred per cent harmonious.
He talked about feeling disrespected having not been contacted regarding his renewal, about having a ‘higher budget’ in mind to operate compared to what was forthcoming, he praised his own work under those conditions and stressed the need for a balance between youth and experience.
Five days after that on June 1, an official statement confirmed that RedBird Capital Partners and Elliott had entered into a definitive agreement for RedBird to acquire the club, with an expected closing no later than September 2022.
An anxious few weeks followed in which Maldini and Massara did not renew their contracts, requesting certain guarantees before putting ink to a deal and branding their names on the project moving forward under RedBird.
The fact it took until the day after their previous contracts expired to get a renewal over the line heavily implies that there were a lot of differences that needed to be ironed out with Gerry Cardinale, who was now on the scene as the RedBird founder and No.1.
Work then began on a very important transfer campaign in which the objectives were simple: to improve the squad by signing quality players with the parameters imposed and to improve the depth available facilitating the ability to compete on multiple fronts.
The flagship signing of the summer transfer campaign was undoubtedly Charles De Ketelaere, bought for more than €30m from Club Brugge to fix the No.10 role. Divock Origi was signed on a free to rotate with Olivier Giroud, and Malick Thiaw was purchased as a centre-back with potential.
Two players returned to Milanello in Tommaso Pobega – after a four-year spell out on loan at various clubs, most recently Torino – and Yacine Adli who came back from Bordeaux.
Finally, two players joined on loan as Sergino Dest came to deputise Davide Calabria after Alessandro Florenzi’s injury, and Aster Vranckx came from Wolfsburg to add depth to the midfield.
With the exception of Thiaw and partly Vranckx, Dest and Pobega, these are players with an attacking vocation, yet the contribution was basically non-existent: five goals and two assists in total. Pobega scored three times, while Origi had two goals and an assist, with De Ketelaere getting the other.
Something else happened that winter too: Ivan Gazidis departed his role as the club’s CEO upon the expiry of his contract, and former Elliott portfolio manager Giorgio Furlani stepped into his shoes.
It was well known how Gazidis was previously the go-between for Maldini and the ownership, often having the final say on transfers until Cardinale opted to give the director that autonomy, but throwing a figure like Furlani – for all his experience – was an added dynamic.
Breakdown in relations
The circumstances surrounding the change of ownership and how long it took to sort a new contract didn’t help Maldini, but the players he ended up getting over the line (with two months still to operate) didn’t help Pioli much either.
However, there was a total spend of €56m on incoming transfers and the Rossoneri had the highest net spend of any Serie A club, again largely down to the inability to sell players and top up the available budget.
At face value, the facts regarding the on-field performances of the post-Scudetto season make for difficult reading. Firstly, the title race never got going as Milan fell apart after the World Cup break, having two separate crises in January and March that saw them drop out of the top four.
Ultimately, Milan did only finish in the Champions League places because of Juventus getting a 10-point deduction, something that will not have been lost on the ownership when the task was to build from the platform of last season.
Moreover, the other domestic competitions were a disaster too. A virtually entirely rotated side were dumped out of the Coppa Italia at the first hurdle by a Torino team who played for an hour with 10 men, and then a 3-0 defeat to city rivals Inter followed in the Supercoppa in Saudi Arabia.
It is in the Champions League that Milan excellent themselves, reaching a first semi-final since 2006-07 but again getting beaten 3-0 by the Nerazzurri, and there are some accusations about getting the favourable bracket of the draw.
Amid the backdrop of a mixed season in which the team only really competed on one of four fronts, tensions began to grow about how the club could move forward.
The second leg defeat against Inter at San Siro was when we saw Maldini at his most honest since that previous interview with La Gazzetta last may.
He is often quite restrained in what he says, talking about things in a matter of fact way and remaining more on the optimistic side about the past, present and future, but it did not need a microscope to read between the lines of what he was trying to say.
The 34 signings during Paolo Maldini and Ricky Massara's tenure together.
[via @footballitalia] pic.twitter.com/Pfj6vV9vQb
— MilanData📊 (@acmilandata) June 6, 2023
We analysed it in a separate piece, but the crux was that he was angry at not having found tactical ‘countermeasures’ against Simone Inzaghi’s side and that the last four games weren’t even a contest, and he asked for investment if the squad are to meet targets in more than one competition.
Maldini didn’t stop there either, giving the season an 8 out of 10 on the proviso a top four finish were secured despite performing poorly in three competitions, and he even gave an interesting explanation for choosing Charles De Ketelaere over Paulo Dybala hinting at ownership directive.
We at SempreMilan knew in the days after that interview that the higher-ups at RedBird did not appreciate that interview from Maldini. Whether it was fully factual or whatever things were contorted to protect himself, it was simply far too open-book for the liking of the owners.
Nonetheless, the season did end with a place in Europe’s top club competition confirmed and after some tears shed at Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s emotional farewell following the 3-1 win over Hellas Verona.
Then, the feeling was that the chapter was closed and the Maldini-Massara-Moncada-Furlani quartet could start work building for 2023-24, with stability being one of the major strongpoints as mentioned above.
Boiling point
Cardinale had different ideas. By this point the differences had become irreconcilable in his eyes, and he chose to sack Maldini less than 24 hours after that finale against Verona.
By piecing together the various reports circulating combined with our own information, the RedBird founder was disappointed about a number of things related to the way Maldini had operated under his ownership.
He judged the last summer mercato to be a complete failure, in particular the arrivals of De Ketelaere – who he spent 70% of the budget on – and Origi.
The American never say eye to eye with Maldini’s persistent desire to sign more experienced players, and when targets like Marko Arnautovic and Domenico Berardi were mentioned, alarm bells started ringing again.
Player turnover is absolutely necessary for a club like Milan operating under a UEFA Settlement Agreement in an economically challenged league like Serie A, so Cardinale was disappointed at the lack of sales.
Moreover, from a purely sporting point of view it would be fair to say that Cardinale did not share Maldini’s ‘8 out of 10’ verdict about the season on the field.
Above all though it was that interview given to the TV cameras in a very delicate moment after the 3-0 aggregate defeat against Inter where the small cracks in the relationship grew to the size of fault lines between tectonic plates.
Cardinale made his biggest and boldest call yet. He arranged a meeting with Maldini in a city centre hotel and it lasted just one hour. The former captain was told that there was no longer a place for him at the club he loves.
What happens next
How do AC Milan move forward from this? The statement on the official website announcing Maldini’s sacking said ‘his day-to-day duties will be performed by a team working in close integration with the first team manager, ultimately reporting to the CEO’.
Once again piecing together reports from reliable sources plus our own, the farewell of Maldini and Massara will not affect Stefano Pioli’s future and he is not at risk of also being fired as the head coach.
Instead, he seems to have received a message of additional trust from the ownership in the immediate aftermath, as they greatly appreciate the work he has done both in terms of results on the field but also developing players.
The way RedBird see it is that Pioli managed to lead Milan to win the Scudetto after an 11-year drought in 2021-22 and guided them to the semi-finals of the Champions League after a 16-year wait.
In addition to that, they appreciate the professionalism he shows in the media and in the way that he gets on with the job at hand without causing a controversy.
There were of course suggestions that Pioli might well consider his role given he had lost his major backer. Maldini hired him in the first place late in 2019, campaigned to keep him when it looked like Ralf Rangnick would take his job, and signed off his renewal until 2025 last October.
However, not everything will remain the same. Cardinale’s idea is to build a well-oiled gear in which each component (coach, management and ownership) work in cohesion, ultimately reporting to Furlani as mentioned above.
Geoffrey Moncada will be the de facto sporting director but should remain away from the public eye, and it will be up to Pioli to have a strong voice in the building of the squad both in terms of signings and sales.
It has been described as more of an English-style model, with manager duties like Jurgen Klopp has at Liverpool and Sir Alex Ferguson had at Manchester United in the past.
The reaction of the dressing room has also been speculated upon. While we don’t relay these as facts, La Repubblica reported that the Milan players were left unhappy with the decision and they even spoke of a dressing room ‘revolt’.
They stated that main players in the squad such as Rafael Leao, Mike Maignan and Theo Hernandez heard the news and ‘didn’t take it well’ given how close the two directors were.
That is an important point to mention, too. Part of the weight Maldini and Massara had was because of their work away from the desk, such as the relationship they created with the team which was something unique.
The closeness that the former captain had to the squad and to certain players, plus Pioli too, was one of the most important forces behind the resurgence and the successes.
Without Paolo it won’t be the same and replacing him won’t be easy. Milan have lost and now lack not only a charismatic figure but a point of reference when it comes to establishing a link between the squad and the upper management.
Could that role be trusted to someone like Zlatan Ibrahimovic? It seems unlikely given the relationship he has with Maldini and how it might be perceived, but it does seem obvious that there is at least one figure missing in the set-up.
The wording ‘at least one’ is important, because there are other concerns. For all Furlani’s experience on the corporate side of things and Moncada’s proficiency in scouting and player evaluation, neither of them have actually ever negotiated a transfer in their life.
To presume neither of the pair know how to would be misguided, though there is something to be said about having two figures in charge whose expertise comes from very different sides of the classic ‘sporting director’ role.
Another crucial note amongst all this is that disapproval of the chaos that is ensuing regarding Maldini and Massara’s exit should not mean being totally unwilling to judge the ideas and the plans of the new management on merit, however that looks.
Some fans – as is their reactionary right to do so – are already writing the future off as a disaster. It is imperative that – while directing justified anger at the treatment of the outgoing directors – Milan supporters see the future as a clean slate and acknowledge that a change in transfer strategy could bring some positives.
Now the RedBird revolution can truly begin perhaps, but Cardinale and the new management team have a lot of work to do to get the majority of fans back on side. The margin for error is essentially zero.
They believe in this project to the extent that even Paolo Maldini – the living breathing embodiment of AC Milan’s glory days – was not enough to get in their way. The mission to also make everyone else believe begins.
If somebody should have been sacked it should have been PIOLI not Maldini
#sempremaldini
#cardinaleout
#redbirdout
Maldini is Milan and he’s done such a great job
“Part of the reason Maldini and Massara were working with a limited budget was because they had a chronic issue selling players to raise the budget and free up wages, with four exits in particular standing out over two summers.”
“Player turnover is absolutely necessary for a club like Milan operating under a UEFA Settlement Agreement in an economically challenged league like Serie A, so Cardinale was disappointed at the lack of sales.”
This, right here was Maldini and Massara biggest flaw.
The transfer market is like a crap shoot. You are trying to predict how a player will turn out, especially in this case because they were signing mostly young players. Some transfers will pan out some won’t. There can be excuses and explanations about the transfers that didn’t pan out.
But their problem selling players was inexcusable, especially when you have so many in your squad that don’t get any playing time and are totally out of the coaches plans.
I also didn’t like Maldini saying that he would grade the season 8 out of 10. We were awful for big part of the season. Even prior to the 2023 nightmares, we didn’t play well but somehow got points in some games.
Maldini and Massara started well when it comes to signing players, but they ended horribly. Their last 2 mercatos were very poor. Only Maignan, Giroud and Thiaw were positive, the rest were bad, especially Bakayoko who spent 2 years collecting checks without contributing.
Either way, all in all, they had a positive run. They took Milan back to respectability. Back home to champions league and even won a scudetto. Nothing but respect for Maldini and Massara, but such is the business where it’s more of a “what have you done for me lately” business and towards the end honestly they were not good.
I wish Maldini could have been moved to a different position , still be part of Milan, but I understand why he refused. He never wanted to be just a mascot like Zanetti at Inter or even Baresi at Milan. I think that Baresi is something like a vice president but has zero say in anything.
Hopefully the new people in charge can match and surpass what M&M did, but only time will tell.
Forza Milan
I do not agree my friend. A lot of players are leaving for free in modern football, just look at the market right now.
They couldn’t extend Calhanoglu, Kessié or Dollarumma because of the salary cap, which made sense at the time to clean the debt. Calhanoglu is a mercenary, so is Kessié who promised to the fans he would sign after his international duty. Liar. Maldini didn’t flinch against filthy agents, such as Raiola. Romagnoli was useful for the scudetto campaign but his salary was too high so he left for free.
Maldini did extend almost every important player, from Theo to Bennacer to Kalulu, etc. He learned his mistake not to hold negotiations before the last year of the contract, as we saw with Leao, who was ready to be sold this summer if he didn’t extend.
Now, Jerry is only interested in money so get prepared to see some star players leaving for pure capital gain.
I didn’t say anything about Hakan, Kessie, Donnarumma and Romagnoli.
Milan has 30 players in the squad and Pioli was using probably less than 20.
Go and transfermrket and check Milan outgoing players. Very little activity especially in the last 2 years. You have to have a turnover of players that you don’t need anymore to get money to but players that you need.
Their lack of sales was a major problem
Yes, my bad. The paper actually states that these four leaving for free was an issue.
But looking at the team, I don’t see who they could have sold. They were building a core from scratch and most of the players in the squad were involved. If you sell one, you need to buy one. They sold, Hauge and it was very profitable. Bakayoko and Dest were on loan, Adli just arrived. This summer they were ready to sell Ballo-Touré, Rebic, Origi, maybe Adli and Florenzi.
I just think this is merely an excuse to justify Maldini’s firing.
Last 2 year was indeed lower, but if you take into account the last 4 years, the total sales under M&M is 139m which is 34.75m per season. Elliot didn’t seem to bother about losing $umma, Hakan, and Kessie for free though, they didn’t intervene to sell them or add a special sales director.
I share the same view with you Bartholomeo.
Especially with the very last paragraph.
Brace yourselves for the new ACM era of making money for the owners in favour of anything else which stands in the way; Maldini was just the first one.
Just keep an eye on this summer mercato for start.
“They couldn’t extend Calhanoglu, Kessié or Dollarumma because of the salary cap, which made sense at the time to clean the debt.” Yes, but they knew this the summer before. So why lose them for free? Sell them for whatever they fetch the summer before their expiration or, better yet, two summers before to achieve max value. Directors worth their salt negotiate extensions after two or three years into a five year contract (Galliani did this all the time) or they sell at the right time.
“Romagnoli was useful for the scudetto campaign but his salary was too high so he left for free.” But you just called Calhanoglu a mercenary for the same thing. What is a salary that is too high? It’s all relative. Agents and salary demands are a reality of the game that will not change based on who our owners or directors are.
The funny part about Hakan and Kessie that people mistake often and they say it was a good thing that Milan let them walk because thay had high salaries and that was helping our budget. But Hakan and Kessie were only making 2.2 mil and 2.4 mil a year.
Just for comparison Bakayoko makes 2.5 , Florenzi makes 3 mil, Rebic makes 3.5 , Origi makes 4 mil and dest was paid 4.8 mil.
Now Gigio made 6 mil and Romagnoli had some contract where his Salary went up every year and towards the end he made 5 or 6 mil
“But Hakan and Kessie were only making 2.2 mil and 2.4 mil a year.”
Yes. Decent salaries and not a penny worth more. Therefore they had to be released for free. Paying 6M€ for such players wouldn’t have made any sense.
You are just quoting parts of what I said, that’s not fair. I said that Maldini learned from his rookie mistakes.
Romagnoli never asked for a hefty paycheck, but Milan couldn’t keep him at his salary because he wasn’t a starter anymore. Nobody would imagine that Tomori and Kalulu would thrive so fast. Except Maldini?
These four years of experience turned Maldini into a very valuable manager, and now we start from scratch with Furlani who is more of a banker than a football executive, and Moncada who was never involved in some negotiations.
Maldini probably was crucial to Kalulu’s & Theo’s development but let’s be honest. Someone else might have done better job with the transfers and Maldini should have had a different role in the club. Probably an assistant coach or something.
Sell tomori. Majority of defensive mishaps came from him this year and United want him.
I agree. The article also highlights a key fact: Maldini and Massara were technically part of the old regime. New ownership usually ushers in changes at the managerial and coaching level. It’s not a must, but it usually does. A new ownership simply wants their people in the key positions. Maldini and Massara were given new contracts in the summer Redbird took over as an effort at continuity over the natural inclination to change. The fact the a scudetto had just been won probably pushed that decision over the line. It’s tough to oust directors after such a feat. But given the fact that Cardinale probably didn’t want them in the first place added to the market failures of the past season and the reality that if it hadn’t been for Juventus’ penalty, the dismissal of Malini and Massara isn’t that crazy of an outcome.
Like I said in another post: I think M&M earned the right to try to correct the last market this summer, based on the work done in 2021 to set up the scudetto win. It’s not that it happened, but rather when it happened and how it happened. It is not likely they would have been renewed in 2024 and what we’re seeing now is the acceleration of that timeline.
Give me a break, everyone knew that Juve was not going to participate in this year’s European cups, that’s the reason why all teams were fighting for the 8th spot. With that in mind, we left the second lines in serie a and went all in for the CL. Lazio was ahead but both Inter and Milan were confident of beating Roma and Atalanta for the 4th place.
To summarize, we knew we couldn’t win Serie A in January, we knew we could make top 4 in serie A, so we put just enough effort to get that done and put the rest in CL.
– For CDK failure: He arrived at the last moment, did not have a proper pre-season, new country, new language and played out of position (AM was not his position ever, so don’t argue). So you should not mark this as failure yet.
– For right wing issue: Pioli was happy with what we got. Our right wing players were not amazing but they contributed some goals and assists.
-For missing out free players: most of the cases, they opted to move to other teams due to the lengthy process Milan directors had to follow. Enzo was gone because Benifica moved quickly, Kolo Muani thought of better prospect in Germany
-For 50 million budget: you cannot buy 3 top players with this economy. Origi was chosen due to his experience but Milan was rejected by other striker profiles. Don’t argue over belotti-he is not the same player anymore and have no resale value at all
-For dest: He was a last moment purchase due to the injury of our players. Not enough profile was available at that moment.
-Florenzi: salary is high and injury prone but has the experience of a leader and also can play as right winger.
-Adli: never had a chance due to the manager, played out of position
the complaints we can have is for lazetic and vasqueze, don’t know why they are signed.
Milan had to go for cheap solutions and ultimately missed out on some targets but it is normal. Nothing is final unless the contracts are signed.
For missing out sales money: We could not renew the players due to the salary issues. If the players refuse to sign, Milan was not in a position to freeze out those players. Do you think Milan management did not know what would happen to Donna, Kessi and Hakan? – They knew but still they had to let them play and let the contract run down.
FOR PIOLI: He is a good coach for the midlevel team, Milan is grateful for his contribution. But he has technical limitation.
End of the discussion: Milan should not have fired M&M. They did not have enough time in last summer. The honorable way was to let them work for one year and do not renew.
“– For CDK failure: He arrived at the last moment, did not have a proper pre-season, new country, new language and played out of position (AM was not his position ever, so don’t argue). So you should not mark this as failure yet.” — Lots of players arrive at their clubs last minute and contribute more. I’m also not ready to give up on CDK, but let’s also be frank.
“– For right wing issue: Pioli was happy with what we got.” — Are you sure? Did Pioli call you and make this statement? Because just like half of the people on this website I’m sure Pioli would prefer a Rodrygo, or a maybe even a Dybala (yep, I’m going to use that dog whistle).
-“For missing out free players: most of the cases, they opted to move to other teams due to the lengthy process Milan directors had to follow.” –Yes, and those directors were Maldini and Massara. They seemed to move pretty quickly with Kamada. Last summer they had a budget and the discretion to use it as they saw fit, so the speed was on them.
“-For 50 million budget: you cannot buy 3 top players with this economy. Origi was chosen due to his experience but Milan was rejected by other striker profiles.” –In this economy? “This economy” is fine. We had one of our highest average attendances ever. The problem with money is the TV deal, private stadiums, and revenue from sponsorship. Redbird is address problems 2 and 3. If all clubs do the same, maybe they’d be able to address problem 1 due to increasing quality of the product on the pitch. Simple. As to Origi, that’s another assumption. Who do you know for a fact rejected us? Again, Dybala comes up.
“-For dest: He was a last moment purchase due to the injury of our players. Not enough profile was available at that moment.
-Florenzi: salary is high and injury prone but has the experience of a leader and also can play as right winger.” –Ok, sure, true.
“-Adli: never had a chance due to the manager, played out of position” –We’ve already seen accounts of M&M simply purchasing players and then giving them to the coach to use. Was Pioli asked what he wanted or needed? It seems the coach had relatively little input. This tracks with the news coming out now that Pioli will be more involved in selecting players. I would be pissed if I asked for A, B, C and got X, Y and Z, instead.
“For missing out sales money: We could not renew the players due to the salary issues. If the players refuse to sign, Milan was not in a position to freeze out those players. Do you think Milan management did not know what would happen to Donna, Kessi and Hakan? – They knew but still they had to let them play and let the contract run down.” –NO. They knew they would be out of contract the summer before. So why lose them for free? Sell them for whatever they fetch the summer before their expiration or, better yet, two summers before to achieve max value. Directors worth their salt negotiate extensions after two or three years into a five year contract (Galliani did this all the time, and like they did with Theo) or they sell at the right time.
A profile like CDK, you need to give time.
Yes, pioli called me. Jokes aside, Milan can not afford the names you mentioned.
They moved for Kamada because they thought they would be the directors this summer…it was not the same case last summer.
Last summer, as I said before, most free agents are almost gone after they are confirmed. You can’t force people to come specially by offering cheap salaries.
Again you don’t know either who rejected who.
Adli is not an AM. It would be strange to think he was bought for M&M desire only.the amount of time M&M gave the time on the field and supported Pioli, I doubt that is true.
We could sell them, true but would they get same quality with that money? Gazidis is experienced enough to approve their contract run down. It was a collective decision, not their fault. Do you think It was worthy to extend their contract on 2020? If you say yes, I have nothing to say.
Cardinale is all about not spending frivolously – and he is right, the world of football is currently ridiculous. All you guys are complaining about is ‘we don’t have enough money to spend!” Well in any other industry you can’t spend what you dont have – easy, right!
Does anyone think that the following was good business?:
Neymar to PSG for a total cost of €489,228,117 (including salary and bonuses)
Enzo Fernandez to Chelsea for €121M
Philippe Coutinho to Barcelona for €145M
Joao Felix to Atlético Madrid for €126
Jack Grealish to Man City for €117M
Romelu Lukaku to Chelsea for €115M
You can even add Mbappe to this list for €180M (even though I think he is a great player, but what has PSG won?)
I think the ones below are much better transfers in terms of ROI, and this is what Cardinale wants to see more of, not the type of transfers above OR the CDK and the Origi ones:
Leao to Milan for €30M now worth €80M (with a clause of €175M)
Theo to Milan for €20M now worth €60M
Ibra to Inter for €24.8M then sold for €70M
Kalulu to Milan for €0.5M now worth €35M
Etc… Its not all about the transfer budget, the books needs to balance!
We are not saying that Milan should throw money around like some petrol emir. There is a difference between that, and having just 35M to spend after so much earnings this season and no debt anymore.
We have no debt (now) because of how frugal we have been! Very few clubs are in the Plus these days…
No one is asking to over spend but Maldini is asking the budget we are earning this year.
With 35m we can hardly recruit 1player, what about the other recruits?
We play with 16 or 17players in 3leagues?
If we have to win a league this budget is not enough. We need at least good signings.
Even after earning 120+ million by reaching semis in champions league, we have 35m for summer mercato?
Please wakeup
“Even after earning 120+ million by reaching semis in champions league, we have 35m for summer mercato?
Please wakeup”
You do realize that Milan has made losses for the past 2-3 decades and it had to stop? They made losses even last year. With all the FFP sh*t on our necks already continuous losses are unbearable. 2022-2023 season will be the first season with a positive income (profit). But it won’t be much. If you take away the 120M€ UCL money the 2022-23 results would go back to losses.
There simply isn’t “extra money” to spend. The new stadium is needed for that.
Thanks for this Oliver – a more nuanced argument than what we’ve been hearing lately from the “Cardinale is Hitler!/Maldini is Jesus!” brigade. Like you say, some fans see that this could be a positive move and why he was sacked – but we’re not allowed to have differing opinions apparently.
Indeed. I was shocked to see Maldini sacked. But! With everything said and done, it does seem there is valid points on the M&M dismissal too.
No one knows for sure now if the sackings were a mistake or not. Only time will tell. I try to be positive and think that this mercato’s signings will increase the quality of the team and there will be players that actually help the team next season. You honestly cannot say the same about the players who came in last summer now can you?
People keep saying Gary wants to make capital gain by selling players? How do you come to that conclusion?
They cashed out 1.2 billion to get a club so they can sell players and get that money back? And then what? End up with a weak club that drains resources (cash) that nobody will buy? That makes zero sense.
Indeed. Hard to argue that.
More and more people are finally seeing the truth through all of the B.S., or maybe they did see it but they didn’t like to say it out loud because of the incoming backlash from the emotional mob of Maldini fans.
Forza Milan
Imagine keeping Pioli and sacking Maldini. Wake me up when it’s over..
Jack Bonaventura ballin’ in the Conference league final.
Just as a reminder, Maldini didn’t even offer him a contract extension and let him leave for free.
I guess he was too old being 30 in 2020.
Maybe Messias and Florenzi gave Maldini fake IDs, saying that they are younger and fooled poor ol’ Paolo
I forgot about Bonaventura being another Maldini freebie. I never understood it at the time and it still irks me to this day.
Yes that was a mistake but remember the whole core of the team was signed by Maldini and all of them are renewed except for Mike who won’t renew because of Maldini sacking
Lol is real funny when ppl blaming Maldini even The Legendary Director like Braida,Moggi have same mistakes with buying Player or cannot sell trash player, Marotta too ( hell player like Skriniar the future capitano of Iler merda leave for FREE ).
The REAL problem in MILAN IS PIOLI !!
Why don’t you ask Pioli why he never used Adli ? why he’s used Messias instead Saelemaekers ? why he’s used Diaz in central not winger ?
He even used Bakayoko, who was destined to go away for a long time.
Thank to FIGC Prosecutor for the Penalty point for Juve.
For me Pioli should got fired too !
@Oliver.
Fantastic article. Very well thought out and you are actually correct. M&M has a lot of successes, as well as a lot of failures, the kind of failures that can prompt a dismissal from the role, namely player sales. An owner can definitely fire a SD, club legend or not doesn’t really matter. What matters.. is the possible reason behind it, and if there is any valid reason at all.
“Some fans – as is their reactionary right to do so – are already writing the future off as a disaster. It is imperative that – while directing justified anger at the treatment of the outgoing directors – Milan supporters see the future as a clean slate and acknowledge that a change in transfer strategy could bring some positives.”
you have obviously noticed, I am one of those. lol It is because, I see no rational reason to fire the sporting director who was bringing the club to success, in tournaments and financially. Plus.. Cardinale’s own history of Moneyball.
First, let me explain why I think the reasons that are being speculated in the media for the sacking of Maldini, are utter garbage.
1. Player sales. Apparently, not being able to sell players such as Hakan, Kessie and $umma is what is touted as Maldini failures.
Maldini actually didn’t want to sell ANY OF Those players.
He wanted to renew them. Donnarumma, Hakan, Kessie.. he wanted to keep them all. We lost them because of our owners stinginess.
He simply wasn’t allowed to renew them. Blocked over and over again.. by our own.. Furlani , who you already mentioned, has NO IDEA HOW to negotiate a contract. Gazidis played a big part in this as well.
Imagine if Maldini actually had his way and those players still in the club. We would be winning multiple scudettos by now and probably have won ourselves a UCL as well if we had Botman, Zaniolo in the team as Maldini wanted.
The blames being put on Maldini can all boils down to lack of investment when needed to retain our best players. These gaps were not supposed to be created in the first place. Our owners created them.
There is no way a SD wants to let their most creative player leave for 500k, nor the best midfielder like Kessie leave when he asked for a Salary that HE RIGHTFULLY DESERVED. So I don’t believe player sales were the reason Maldini was fired.
2. This Mercato. Again.. These players who arrived this seson.. None of them were wanted by Maldini. he had to make do with them because those were the options available.
Who did he want? Botman, Renato and Zaniolo. By the time he was renewed, we lost them all.
He had to do what was left in the market and he did. In CAM the choice boiled down to CDK, a young prospect to was killing it in Belgian league and UCL.. or Dybala.. who hadn;t played a good game in the whole season, injured most of the time, asking for a high salary, has ego problems with a legendary coach? of course CDK was the rational choice.
So definitely the mercato isn’t the reason either because Maldini had very little control specially when the players he had targeted were all gone before his contract was renewed.
3. Finance. We pretty much had the best year financially in the last 15 years in 2023. So definitely it wasn’t finance.
So why was Maldini fired? Not because of a job done badly. It was because Maldini is in the way of how Gerry wants to run the club and here comes.. Moneyball.
lets discuss how Moneyball works.
1. You scout a player with talent by using analytics..
2. buy the player for the cheapest possible price, from all over the world..
3. Use a different performance monitoring analytics to improve the player, game by game.. aka.. you use stats to direct the player where to move, what are his strengths, how to utilize those in the best possible ways.. when to pass, when to shoot, when to hold etc.
4. when he starts to perform, you sell them for a massive profit.
The only way, this profit margin gets bigger, is if the club has a massive global reach.. and brand value.
He bought Toulouse, and tried moneyball on it. It generated profit, but small amounts. So what he needed is a bigger club with bigger brand value, so the player sales amount can grow higher.
Yankees DOES THIS Exact same thing. Buys players cheap, sells them high.. and NEVER WINS ANYTHING, continuously filling Steinbrenner’s pockets reasonably turning him richer every season.
Cardinale wants the same for Milan.
Now.. lets see the clash. We definitely have earned enough money to make us capable of investing without getting our books into red this season. So Maldini asked for investment to improve the squad so we can actually contend.. in UCL and in Serie A. he wanted players who would need substantial investment, such as SMS, Berardi and so on. These players will guarantee trophies yes, but resale value will just decrease. A direct contradiction to Moneyball Cardinale wants to try in Milan.
Then Maldini was informed of 35m budget apparently lol
The whole smokescreen of ‘sustainable’ model is just another word for player trading. Aka.. Moneyball. In case you don’t know who Billy beane is.. he calls himself player trading guru. Lol
I hope you can see why I think this Cardinale is not the beginning of a new Era.. it’s just an end to what Milan really is. This is Banter Era 2.0 but permanent. Money ball is not a winning formula. It’s a money making method by using players as Slaves to buy and sell, they won’t turn into champions in Milan anymore, Milan won’t be a family, Everything that Milan stood for since the very beginning will be lost.
I really really hope I am wrong for the sake of the club I deeply Love since I started playing football when I was a kid. SDs and legends will come and go. I am not concerned because it was Maldini who got fired. His firing means nothing. What’s worrying is.. what happens after.
From what I am seeing, Cardinale is bad news. Add in the fact that he had no idea that Milan had 7 UCLs UNTIL he bought the club makes me worry even more. I just want the fans to know exactly what Cardinale wants according to facts and his track records. I don’t want a ‘I TOLD YOU SO’ moment after Milan is ran down to 10th place and I desperately hope I am wrong. But evidence and facts suggests otherwise. That’s all I am saying!
I hope you understood my point Oliver.
Forza Milan.
It’s so funny that with all your long and useless analysis, you so easily believe the rumors about the budget that the media has made up.
I had to search Billy Beane after reading this. Dark times ahead of us.
I had to look up Billy Beane after reading this post. Dark times ahead of us.
Bingo. I should have read your post before posting mine. Yours went into more detail though. To describe the nuances over the last 3 years can take the said three year lol 😂. But the narrative sticks like eg we didn’t sell snake, Kessie and dollar. Sure that’s one way to look at it. But who capped the wage budget at 6m when 7 or 8m would have pushed it over the line? 🤷♂️
Those are some of the few things that irk me but the narrative is going to prevail. I also believe though Maldini wanted to go as far as possible in the UCL to also push his narrative too. He leaves with 3 years, Scudetto and a UCL semi to his name..so does Massara..and on meagre budgets
The faults of Maldini and Massara that media is always pointing out, can not be directly blamed on them because it wasn’t like they had the full authority to make those decisions. And if they had, they would renew them all in a heartbeat, I know that for sure because they tried their best. Imagine if we didn’t have a $tupid wage cap. We wouldn’t be in this F’ed up mess in the first place. Hakan, Kessie and Dollar would be here.. plus Botman and more. The team would be completely different WITH MUCH LESS MONEY SPENT on useless experimental transfers than we actually did.
A sensible owner should’ve analyzed the club’s policies and would have removed that useless salary cap that’s done more damage than good to the team.
BUT, M&M has faults. They had weakness in negotiating player sales, but Kessie, Hakan or Dollar wasn’t it. It was Bonaventura and Romagnoli. They knew they wouldn’t keep these players so why let the contract expire? They could’ve renewed them and sold the players for some money as they would fetch at least 50 mil combined if not more.
“Furlani , who you already mentioned, has NO IDEA HOW to negotiate a contract. ”
Is that a fact? How well do you know Furlani? Have you seen him work? What is your source?
It’s not me, oliver mentioned it in his post. Did you even read the sempreMilan post I have commented on? LOL Or just came here to insult me?
” the best midfielder like Kessie leave when he asked for a Salary that HE RIGHTFULLY DESERVED”
LOL. Nope. Your opinion on Kessie’s salary doesn’t count as a fact. 6M deserved? LOL. Highly debatable. I bet 50% of this crowd here doesn’t share your opinion on that.
You think Kessie didn’t deserve 6M? The best player in our squad? We all know he did deserve it. Specially now after the disaster this season is.
6M bb for the top 5 if not best CDM in the whole of Europe last season? Come on now 😁. There’s a reason he can snag a 14m per season contract. I.agine if we just caved to when his demands were around 6 or even 7m🤷♂️. To me he’s worth it. Look at how we did this year, our defence get exposed constantly
“These players who arrived this seson.. None of them were wanted by Maldini.”
OK. Did Paolo say that to you over breakfast or…? Why did he sign them then? Why spend the whole mercato time and money on CDK if he didn’t want to? I love how you think. 😀
Most of those signing were last moment. The two signings Maldini wanted and were already verbally agreed upon were Botman and Renato. next targets were Zaniolo/Ziyech. It was all over the media. You lived under a rock or something back then? lol
“This is Banter Era 2.0 but permanent. Money ball is not a winning formula. It’s a money making method by using players as Slaves to buy and sell, they won’t turn into champions in Milan anymore, Milan won’t be a family, Everything that Milan stood for since the very beginning will be lost. ”
Spoken like a true drama queen. Jeesus Christ.
Not really. It’s a fact. NY Yankees use it. Toulouse uses it. Research and read up.
Fact? LOL. 😀 😀 😀
YES! Facts may seem like a joke to you, but doesn’t change how it works my friend.
“Money ball is not a winning formula. It’s a money making method by using players as Slaves to buy and sell, they won’t turn into champions in Milan anymore, Milan won’t be a family, Everything that Milan stood for since the very beginning will be lost.”
Fact? 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀
Slaves? Everything will be lost? Fact? 😀 😀 😀
The point was.. investment was denied.
@Veeney
yeah, according to La Repubblica.
lets call it 50? Does it make much of a difference? Investment is denied anyway yeah?
The point was… it is enough for you to write, “I don’t believe what I don’t want to believe, I believe what I want to believe.”
Facts support my belief. Nothing else matters. If you have any argument that actually makes sense, feel free to discuss.
Yeah, only facts are important, and most rumors are unreliable, so it’s useless to analyze whether they are true or not.
There are only biased opinions like yours anyway.
All you had to say is.. you don’t have anything valid to add. Could’ve spared your useless brain some effort that it cant take anyway lol have a good day kid.
Yeah, it is enough for you to write, “I don’t believe what I don’t want to believe, I believe what I want to believe.”
Good job from Milan4lyf to sum up the situation.
Veeney are you a member of the communication crisis team from Jerry? Or an AI, since Jerry loves softwares and algorithms, and probably does not want to waste money?
Maybe you’re not familiar with investigative journalism. Sources won’t be exposed, it’s the first rule. It’s probably a leak from someone inside Casa Milan, or even Maldini himself. Anyway it’s way more believable that the summer budget is only 35M than that Maldini was fired because of poor performances in his job.
@Bartholomeo
You are right, someone may have leaked the information that Maldini wanted Pirlo to be the coach.
Only thing that matters is: we have 35M transfer budget LOLOLOLOLO. Ya good luck with that.
Yeah he wrote a long posts, but that’s the only thing that matters to him after all LOLOLOLOLO.
The thing that angers me the most is the way that the American ended the relationship.
It’s normal that the owner and the directors might have different ideas about the future, it’s also normal that the owner don’t want to invest more money.
But anybody has basic football knowledge knows what the name Maldini means for Milan, it is also widely reported how important Maldini was in the development of our stars like Theo, Tomori, Tonali, and Leao.
The ignorance and arrogance of Cardinale make him show no respect at all to our history (himself admitted not long ago that he don’t know what the badger “7” means on our UCL jersey) and no consideration to the club reputation at all. Only his ego is the most important thing for him.
I don’t see a future for Milan, not because he fired Maldini, but the personality revealed in all this. We have also see this kind of American ruthlessness many times before.
Can anybody think of any successful US football club owner? I can only count Liverpool, but even that probably is more because of Klopp rather than the owner – just look at what happened this season.
Milan is dead, in the hand of a net worth 200m only owner~ sad to say
Thanks for this take.
Well first off, this is one way you can see the picture and it’s probably the most neutral way of putting it. If you’re a fan of M&Ms work you’d give more credit in some aspects and if you’re not there are other aspects you’d criticize. In the pro M&M bunch (albeit admittedly includes me) you have the positives: re-signing core players for cheap and I do mean cheap (…Theo and Leao could make massive amounts more than what they signed for at Milan), ability to work within budget and wage caps, ability to find great defensive players, active presence of a Milan legend, footballing experience and a reference point of Milan in and of itself. On the other side from what I read here: unable to resolve either contract or sale before expiration, unable to offload deadweight, excessive amounts of players in the team.
Then theres nuances as to why what didn’t happen eg sale of Kessie, snake and dollar and both sides have valid points. But what we don’t have is a counterfactual. We don’t know if we sold those three how much we would have gotten or how well we would have done or have a Scudetto for that matter. So we can only rely on what actually happened.
The rest is either fluff, guesswork, hearsay or better yet insider information. So unless one actually knows relationships within Milan then we can only speculate. For instance I’m hard pressed to think Pioli had zero say in bringing in players after being in contact on a daily basis with M&M and they way he was being defended and the way they communicate with each other. I also don’t believe Maldini just went out of his way to get Adli and CDK, there has to be someone else behind those decisions. But the above most can agree with.
If you look strictly at results, there’s no other team in the last 3 years bar Inter that has done better. This is probably whatsnthe surprise. A Scudetto, UCL qualification each year and a UCL semi is great work. So I’m pretty convinced the decision to sack wasn’t results oriented. It has to do with the HOW and not the WHAT.
And that’s where the analytics part comes in., Coupled with not attacking the top brass. If that’s the new owners perogative then so be it. But that needs to be coupled with on field experience for it to work properly. I’ll support but this fan base is accustomed to certain things. It’s why there was a banter era when for most other clubs it’s just what it is. I can obviously only wish them well but from a fan perspective the dismissal has a sour taste.
In terms of the article itself, there are areas which I don’t agree:
“Taking a look at Transfermarkt’s estimates, the market value of Franck Kessie, Alessio Romagnoli, Hakan Calhanoglu and Gianluigi Donnarumma would today amount to around €130m in total, but instead Milan did not get a penny from their farewells.” – I’m not sure this is the best approach. It would be better to look at what their values were at the final year of their contract ie where the biggest point of contention arises. It reduces to about 100m but I suppose the point still remains.
The other is just how much “autonomy ” Maldini actually had. I believe this has been overstated. If he really had autonomy he’d have a bigger wage budget wouldn’t he? He’d be able to get his preferred targets like Asensio and Botman
Thank you for expressing in an organized way. I was saying the similar things twice to “Vero R” regarding my above post but sempremilan has not published any of that!
For your last paragraph regarding valuation of the left players, I believe Milan was not in a position in 2020 to renew them. Nearing the end of their contracts, I think it was a collective decision by M&M and Gazidis not to sell them as “Gazidis knew Elliot was going to sell the club soon. So they wouldn’t put more money in the club. It’s better to gain a good result to up the valuation of the club”
In outline. If only Milan had been owned by a wealthy American like Todd Boehly and Maldini Massara there, the situation would not be what it is now. But not for now, Milan is in the hands of the jerk Gerry. Will you take your money with you to death? How? It builds a team. If the team looks strong and the champions come. Your finances will always do well, it can do with a good Market buying and selling. The jerk Gerry just bought Milan after the scudetto. what is given for now. If you only care about your money you are wrong. With Inter alone lost in squad. Even if that bastard Gerry didn’t agree with Maldini’s mercato, but not on a budget either. The mediocre club cried seeing this. Stupid!
From all this fiasco, there are only 2 things that concerned me:
“Milan have lost and now lack not only a charismatic figure but a point of reference when it comes to establishing a link between the squad and the upper management.”
“For all Furlani’s experience on the corporate side of things and Moncada’s proficiency in scouting and player evaluation, neither of them have actually ever negotiated a transfer in their life.”
I think I’ll not be a milanisti for the time being, at least until Milan is still in Gerry’s hand… I think in a few years Milan will be sold for “A Capital Gain” for himself 👍