AC Milan's Financial Situation Thread

Normally, that €207.5 million revenue would be the figure used by Deloittes for their Money League comparison, but Milan’s accounts have another curve ball to throw at us, as their accounts uniquely cover a calendar year (up to 31 December) in order to be consistent with the timings of their holding company Fininvest. All other clubs manage their accounts to coincide with the football season, so they close them in May, June or July. Because of this timing anomaly, the good folk at Deloittes have confirmed to me that their revenue figure of €197 million was provided directly by the club, but this is within 5% of the revenue reported in the accounts, so the themes are very much the same, whichever figure you take.

OK, that’s enough technical talk, let’s look at how Milan’s business model works.

At first glance, Milan’s revenue of around €200 million might not seem too bad. It puts them firmly in the cluster of leading Italian clubs (Inter and Juventus are about the same) and places them tenth in the Deloittes Money League. However, It’s a long way short of their competitors from other countries. Both of the Spanish giants, Real Madrid and Barcelona, generate significantly more revenue than their Italian counterparts with Madrid earning over twice as much as Milan. It’s the same story in England with Manchester United’s receipts being €130 million higher, while Arsenal’s income is a third higher.



Even more worrying is that Milan’s revenue has been declining over the last five years, while their rivals have been powering ahead. In 2005 Milan were as high as third in the Money League, only behind Real Madrid and Manchester United, but since then their position has worsened every year. In particular, they have been overtaken by Bayern Munich and Arsenal, whose investment in new stadiums has really paid dividends. As Galliani admitted, “Ten years ago we invoiced more than Real Madrid and Barcelona, now only half. Unfortunately today there’s a direct correlation between revenue and sporting results.”

The reason for Milan’s comparative revenue weakness is clear to see, as their match day revenue is one of the lowest around at just €33 million. This is typical of Italian clubs, which is reinforced by the fact that the only two clubs in the Money League top ten earning less from this revenue stream are Inter and Juventus. Even though Milan’s gate receipts are the highest in Italy, it’s a bit like being the tallest person in Lilliput.

On the other hand, Milan’s television revenue is one of the highest at €99 million, representing just over half of the club’s total revenue, which again is a common theme among the top Italian clubs. Almost all of this came from the domestic broadcasting deal with Mediaset, which was extended until the 2009/10 season, as the club only received €0.4 million from the UEFA Cup in 2008/09, compared to €24 million from last season’s participation in the Champions League.



Given that the TV income is still so high, even without any money from the Champions League, only emphasises the importance of the domestic TV deal to the club’s finances. Up until now, Milan have been able to market their TV rights on an individual basis, which has been the source of significant competitive advantage, but Italy has now moved to the collective selling of these rights, which in theory will cause their television revenue to reduce due to the more equal distribution of revenue amongst all clubs.

However, early projections indicate that Milan will only suffer a small decrease for a couple of reasons. First, the total money guaranteed by exclusive media rights partner Infront Sports will be approximately 20% higher than before at over €1 billion a year. Second, the complicated distribution formula still favours the big clubs like Milan: 40% will be divided equally among the 20 Serie A clubs; 30% is based on number of fans (25%) and the population of the club’s city (5%); and 30% is based on past results (5% last season, 15% last 5 years, 10% from 1946 to the sixth season before last).

As you might expect for a club with media magnate Silvio Berlusconi at the helm, television income has always been of great consequence to Milan. In fact, they generated the highest broadcasting revenue of any Money League club in 2007, partly due to the €40 million payment they received for winning the Champions League, a particularly impressive feat as they had to go through the qualifying rounds as part of the punishment for their role in the Calciopoli scandal.



There is no doubt that Champions League qualification is imperative for Milan with the accounts identifying this as the key risk facing the club’s economic prospects. Galliani has warned that losses would rise if the club did not qualify, especially if they tried to maintain a squad of “Champions League quality”. In the past, it’s been very lucrative, especially in the purple patch between 2005 and 2007, during which Milan won the trophy, were runners-up and reached the semi-finals, when they averaged €38 million a season, not including additional gate receipts or increases in sponsorship payments.

They have not touched those heights since, but even in the years when they were eliminated in the round of the last 16, they still earned a very handy sum. Taking 2009/10 as an example, Milan received €24 million , derived from €7.1 million participation fees, €2.8 million for performances in the group (3 wins at €800k plus 1 draw at €400k), €3 million for reaching the last 16 and €10.9 million from the TV (“market”) pool. To place that into context, Inter’s payment for winning the competition was worth €49 million.

Despite Milan’s patchy record in the last few seasons, the club still retains an enduring appeal, which is demonstrated by the commercial revenue holding up reasonably well. Even though last year’s figures were boosted by the once-off sale of Milan’s image archive for €20 million, the club has stated that in the future commercial contracts will be worth a minimum of €64 million a season until 2017.

The new shirt sponsorship with Fly Emirates will run until 2015 and is worth a guaranteed €12 million a season plus performance related bonuses. These can be worth a fair amount, as seen by the previous contract with Bwin, which generated €10.5 million most seasons, but was as high as €14.2 million in the year that Milan won the Champions League. In any case, the club’s sponsorship deals have been on the increase: up to 2006 Opel €9 million, 2006-2010 Bwin €10 million, 2010-2015 Fly Emirates €12 million.

Milan have enjoyed a long-term relationship with kit supplier Adidas. The current deal runs until 2017 and produces around €13 million a season. According to the supplier’s sales data, Milan sell between 400,000 and 600,000 shirts a season, which would put them in the top ten clubs worldwide and around the same level as Inter and Juventus, though the likes of Real Madrid and Manchester United sell nearly three times as many. It remains to be seen whether Kaka’s transfer has an impact on these figures, as he was the fans’ favourite, so the vast majority of shirt sales used to have his name on the back.

On the one hand, Milan should be congratulated for their efforts in the commercial field, as they earn more here than any other Italian club. For example, their €12 million shirt sponsorship deal is higher than Inter’s €9 million deal with Pirelli (and remember that the nerazzurri are the Champions League winners) and Juventus’ €8 million contract with Betclic (though this is only for the home shirt).

On the other hand, Milan’s €64 million is much lower than clubs abroad. Real Madrid and Barcelona earn well over €100 million, but the benchmark is set by Bayern Munich, who earn an astonishing €159 million commercial income, despite a fairly ordinary Champions League record (at least in recent times). Of more concern is the ability of English clubs to secure better deals with the most egregious example being Liverpool, whose deal with Standard Chartered is worth €24 million a year, even though they have not even qualified for the Champions League. Similarly, the club’s previous sponsor Bwin pay Real Madrid €20 million a season – twice what they were paying the Milanese team.

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Even though there is room for improvement in marketing, Milan’s real issue is match day revenue, which is very low at €33 million. In fairness, this is the highest in Italy, ahead of Inter €28 million, Roma €19 million and Juventus €17 million, but it still looks pretty feeble compared to major clubs in other countries. At the other end of the spectrum, Manchester United and Arsenal generate €128 million and €118 million respectively, which is almost four times as much. That’s a huge advantage, especially when it happens every single season.

Despite attracting average attendances of just under 60,000 in 2008/09, the match day revenue was obviously held back by the lack of Champions League action, though this was offset by raking in €6 million from numerous international friendlies, including games in Qatar and the USA. Of more concern is the dramatic decrease in attendances last season, when the average fell to 43,000. From having the highest crowds in Serie A, Milan have now fallen behind Inter and Napoli.

Nevertheless, the development and commercialisation of the stadium is the key revenue issue for Milan to address. As Galliani explained, “A new stadium is essential for a club that wants to compete in the future. Look at Bayern Munich: since they built a new stadium, their revenue has increased by €60 million.” This is why both Milan and Inter are exploring possible alternatives to the current ground sharing arrangement at San Siro, though some believe that this is merely a ploy to force the local council to sell the stadium for a nominal fee, which would free up funds for the extensive renovations required to modernise the famous old ground.

It’s not just that Milan currently pay the council over €4 million rental a year under a 30-year lease ending in 2030, but the lack of ownership means that they miss out on profitable opportunities like premium seating, corporate boxes, restaurants, retail outlets, naming rights and non-sporting events. It had been hoped that the stadium would be developed as part of Italy’s bid for Euro 2016, but this was lost to France. Instead, investment might be made in order for the stadium to meet the standards required to host the 2015 Champions League final.

Whatever the solution, something must surely be done, as this massive revenue shortfall means that Milan are not competing on a level playing field. As Galliani lamented, “The rankings for revenue and sporting success tend to coincide. The gap comes from different points of departure: in the case of Milan the gate receipts do not reach €30 million a year.” There is no doubt that it would require substantial funds to build a new stadium, but we have seen how beneficial that can be to other teams. Also, much of the funding could be sourced from innovative deals, e.g. over 60% of the money for building Juventus’ new stadium is derived from a long-term naming rights deal with a marketing partner.

Even with all these challenges, the revenue of €208 million would not be too bad, if it were not for the inconvenient fact that costs are almost 50% higher at €292 million, leaving a vast deficit of €84 million.



The main culprit is the hefty wage bill of €172 million, which is the second highest in Italy behind Inter’s €205 million. When noted sports journalist Fabio Ravezzani was asked to explain how Milan could make such large losses, even though they had one of the highest revenues of Italian clubs, he replied, “The answer is simple: Milan’s wage bill is exaggerated. Much higher than Juventus.”

In fact, Milan’s wage bill looks very high compared to almost all other Italian clubs. According to a survey by La Gazzetta dello Sport, their player salaries amount to €130 million, far higher than the likes of Roma €83 million, Fiorentina €42 million, Lazio €41 million, Sampdoria €35 million and Napoli €28 million. It also looks excessive in comparison with foreign clubs. It’s only just behind big spending Real Madrid’s wage bill of €187 million, but higher than Manchester United €155 million, Bayern Munich €139 million, Arsenal €130 million and Lyon €112 million, all of whom have progressed further than Milan in the Champions League in the past few seasons.

The steady increase in Milan’s salaries has resulted in a wages to turnover ratio of 83%, which is far higher than UEFA’s recommended maximum limit of 70%. However, this actually represents an improvement on the previous year’s 100%, thanks to some revenue growth. Let’s consider what that statistic means for a moment: every Euro invoiced by the club is spent on wages, leaving nothing for any other expenses or indeed a transfer budget.

In fairness, this is a common problem for Italian football. Deloittes’ analysis of the top five European leagues for the 2008/09 season revealed that the average wages to turnover ratio for Serie A was the worst at 73%, even higher than the Premier League 67% and much more than the prudent Bundesliga 50%.

That said, Milan are planning to slash their payroll by 30%. This has proved difficult up to now, as the club has been unable to offload older players, because of their high wages. Either this “dead wood” was unwilling to leave for less money or other clubs were reluctant to match their salaries. Frankly, this looks very much like an example of poor management, but fortunately Milan will be able to finally address this issue at the end of the season when ten players’ contracts expire, including the likes of Ronaldinho, Seedorf, Nesta, Ambrosini, Inzaghi and Jankulovski.

That could reduce the wage bill by around €50 million, bringing it down to more sustainable levels. Clearly, these players will need to be replaced, but the cost should be much less, e.g. according to La Gazzetta, Ronaldinho’s salary is €7.5 million, but Milan should be able to find an equivalent striker for €4.5 million (Diego Milito’s salary).

The player amortisation should also reduce either from the sale of the older players or simply from the fact that the original purchase costs have been fully amortised, though this could be more than off-set by the new amortisation from bringing in replacements. Remember that amortisation is the annual cost of writing-down a player’s purchase price. For example, Robinho was signed for €18 million on a four-year contract, but his transfer is only reflected in the profit and loss account via amortisation, which is booked evenly over the life of his contract, i.e. €4.5 million a year (€18 million divided by four years).

To be fair, Milan’s player amortisation is already relatively low at €41 million, compared to those clubs that have traditionally spent big in the transfer market: Manchester City €83 million, Barcelona €71 million, Real Madrid €64 million, Chelsea €57 million and Inter €50 million.



Milan’s deficit is one of the reasons why their debt is so high. In fact, net debt at the group level has doubled in the past four years from €151 million to €301 million. Actually, net debt is almost identical to gross debt, as the club has no cash to speak of, and mainly comprises €171 million of bank loans plus €118 million owed to factoring companies based on future income. This is considerably more than Inter’s bank loans of €48 million, though it’s worth pointing out that Milan are owed €81 million from other football clubs, including €47 million from Real Madrid for Kaka and €7 million from Real Zaragoza for Ricardo Oliveira. In contrast, Milan only owed other clubs €16 million, mainly €10 million to Schalke 04 for Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and €4 million to Fluminense for Thiago Silva.

This has necessitated the support of the owners, with Fininvest explicitly stating in the accounts its commitment to support the club “for a period that will not be less than 12 months from the date of the approval of the financial statements.” Even though Berlusconi is reported by Forbes to be the third richest man in Italy, he has not provided financial support at the same lofty levels that Massimo Moratti has offered to Inter. Nevertheless, he has still contributed over €100 million in the last five years, though his children are apparently pressurising him to stop opening his wallet. This has been denied by Galliani, who claimed, “Berlusconi is still very much in love with Milan and will continue to put money in (though without going crazy).”

This debate has raised the prospect of Berlusconi selling Milan, as he might no longer consider the football club a strategic asset for his multimedia empire. Such talk has been exacerbated by the financial difficulties faced by Fininvest, particularly the court ruling that ordered the company to pay €750 million damages to CIR, the media group formed by Carlo de Benedetti. There have certainly been offers, including €700 million from Albanian oil tycoon Rezart Taci, while the press has speculated about interest from Russian gas giants Gazprom and Libyan sovereign funds.

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The club’s owners have denied any intention to sell, “Fininvest is compelled once again to state, in the most peremptory and absolute manner, that there is no possibility of a sale (even partial) of Milan’s shares.” This was reinforced in the Financial Times by a banker who knows Berlusconi, “Selling AC Milan would be seen as the beginning of the end of his empire.”

The other consideration would be whether a sale would damage him politically. Berlusconi’s initial rise to the political summit just happened to coincide with Milan’s irresistible progress on the pitch. As Paddy Agnew, a Rome-based football journalist, commented, “Berlusconi will frequently use the club to recreate a winning image of himself.” This might explain the spectacular arrival of big names Ibrahimovic and Robinho, which could be an attempt to boost his flagging popularity in the opinion polls. On the other hand, political reasons may also explain why Berlusconi cannot spend too much money on his football club, as this would not look good when the rest of the country is suffering one of the worst economic recessions for years.

Even if Berlusconi did want to return to the good old days with a few extravagant purchases, he needs to be mindful of the new UEFA Financial Fair Play Regulations, which will ultimately exclude from European competitions those clubs that fail to operate within their means, i.e. make a profit. These will be implemented in the 2013/14 season, though the monitoring period will cover the preceding two reporting periods, 2011/12 and 2012/13, so clubs like Milan are under pressure to rapidly eliminate their losses.

Wealthy owners will be allowed to absorb aggregate losses of €45 million over three years for the first two monitoring periods, so long as they are willing to cover the club’s losses by making equity contributions. The maximum permitted loss then falls to €30 million from 2015/16 and will be further reduced from 2018/19 (to an unspecified amount). Although Milan’s last results were within this “acceptable deviation”, this was only achieved with the highly profitable sale of Kaka, which cannot be repeated every year, hence the push to cut the wage bill.

Of course, it would be preferable to reach break-even by growing revenue, but that is future music, very reliant on commercial expansion plus a new (or redeveloped) stadium. On the face of it, you might expect Milan to be against such constraints, but Michel Platini, UEFA’s president, has been quick to emphasise: “It's mainly the owners that asked us to do something – Roman Abramovich, Silvio Berlusconi and Massimo Moratti. They do not want to fork out from their pockets any more.”

So what is the way ahead for Milan? Actually, it could be “Back to the Future” with the club again focusing on developing young players from the primavera. In the glory years, Milan’s first team included many in-house products like Franco Baresi, Paolo Maldini, Billy Costacurta and Demetrio Albertini, so this has worked well in the past. It’s also been a successful strategy at other clubs, notably Barcelona and Bayern Munich, so it’s equally relevant in modern times.

It is debatable whether Berlusconi would have the patience to adopt such an approach. After all, he’s not getting any younger and he gives every appearance of being a man looking for instant gratification (in whatever he does), so he might instead opt to play the transfer market. Actually, in the short-term this might not be such a bad idea, as Milan is sitting on a lot of unrealised profit with the players valued at €98 million in the balance sheet, but worth around €245 million in the real world (according to Transfermarkt).

This leaves the club on the horns of a dilemma, as they need to cut back on their expenditure, but at the same time they must spend to ensure that they have a competitive squad or risk missing out on qualification for the Champions League, which they can ill afford. Appropriately enough for a club nicknamed the “devil”, it’s a case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t – a high-wire balancing act that will require all the skill and experience of the Berlusconi-Galliani axis. The question is will they be up to the task?

http://swissramble.blogspot.com/2010/11/milans-age-of-austerity.html

thank you Jasper, very informative.

we need to own the san siro or get a new stadium badly
________
Plymouth satellite

Thank you Jasper

Very good read Jasper... everyone should take a look at this.

Will try to comment on it later.

Well written article but there`s nothing in there that we didn't already know.

Az. said:

Well written article but there`s nothing in there that we didn't already know.

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nooo, i was making it up when i posted milan are losing money andn ot profitable and berlusconi is actually stealing from club

And too think that over the Summer there, so many folk(me included) got a hard time for saying we needed to be clever in the transfer market and get rid of the dead wood, while trying to balance the books. Repeatedly getting told "its not your money", " Are you all accountants", blah blah blah...

Well we know whats going on, we'll need to see how things develop, but I hope some shreud signings in the Summer, and the offloading of a load of deadwood will help matters both on and off the field.

Forza Milan

As we know Milan have been quite good at fiddling the accounts to make losses at times seem alittle bit more than they actually are so to get more tax & they where even investigated for this at one time. Galliani even commented awhile ago about Milan that particularly year making massive amounts on co-ownerships & loans(20 million) one year & these never appeared in the accounts. We know in 2009 Milan sold Kaka' for exactly 68.5 million(to easily more than cover the 66 million debt) & Milan had to give acouple of percent of this to Sao Paolo(still easily more than covered the debt) & also Milan got exactly 14 million(put in the loan agreement as an option & paid for Huntelaar with) for Gourcuff & with a small percentage to his previous club & it was with little add ons & also swaps that Milan & Inter where looked into for making figures up to increase losses. Player amortisation is also not a proper expense(not a cost at all so overall Milan are making small profits over the long period of many years)so only affects Milan positively in most cases with more tax received & also take Pato for example who is on avery long contract & his value is going up every year not down so from the player points of views it is pointless, but Milan are happy to make up the pointless figures for tax.

So all in all Milan are now in reasonable shape financially with the accounts for the overall long period of many years just in the positive & above even & soon profits should come in pretty well when older players leave on good contracts & other older players sign on far smaller deals. Berlusconi is'nt investing at all at present as we have seen for afew years & he could well invest soon because as Galliani says when the financial fairplay comes in in acouple of years Milan are in good shape & then owners cannot plough money in at all.

DSM said:

As we know Milan have been quite good at fiddling the accounts to make losses at times seem alittle bit more than they actually are so to get more tax & they where even investigated for this at one time. Galliani even commented awhile ago about Milan that particularly year making massive amounts on co-ownerships & loans(20 million) one year & these never appeared in the accounts. We know in 2009 Milan sold Kaka' for exactly 68.5 million(to easily more than cover the 66 million debt) & Milan had to give acouple of percent of this to Sao Paolo(still easily more than covered the debt) & also Milan got exactly 14 million(put in the loan agreement as an option & paid for Huntelaar with) for Gourcuff & with a small percentage to his previous club & it was with little add ons & also swaps that Milan & Inter where looked into for making figures up to increase losses. Player amortisation is also not a proper expense(not a cost at all so overall Milan are making small profits over the long period of many years)so only affects Milan positively in most cases with more tax received & also take Pato for example who is on avery long contract & his value is going up every year not down so from the player points of views it is pointless, but Milan are happy to make up the pointless figures for tax.

So all in all Milan are now in reasonable shape financially with the accounts for the overall long period of many years just in the positive & above even & soon profits should come in pretty well when older players leave on good contracts & other older players sign on far smaller deals. Berlusconi is'nt investing at all at present as we have seen for afew years & he could well invest soon because as Galliani says when the financial fairplay comes in in acouple of years Milan are in good shape & then owners cannot plough money in at all.

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Yes we'll see a massive drop in wages, the main problem is that with players leaving, and en mass, we have to spend to replace, and if we want quality that wont be cheap. This coming Summer we could see Dorf, Dinho, Pippo, Kala, Janku, Gooch, Oddo and Zambro leaving, thats a massive saving on wages, but we will need to replace these players, and it will be interesting to see what happens and how Berlu plays this... I hope we aren't treated to the signings of cheap "Champions", and embarrassing loan deals. There are bargains to be had, but its whether he starts listening to our scouts, or acting on players that are available for decent price yet are still quality i.e Honda, Fucile, Diarra, Afellay, Miranda...

I hope our future is bright, but there has to be some changes in the Summer, and some investment, or we could fall even further from grace...

On a side note, with Fifa's new rules coming in, I am looking forward to seeing how teams with massive debts play it... At least we're now making efforts to being self sustainable.

we just need to be smart.

for example, seedorf and ronaldinho leaving = 11.5m net or 23m gross wages.

if we replace them with honda and verdi for ex, we save 20m in wages (honda's wages are paid by emirates)

in midfield, pirlo,ambro and hopefully flams cut their wages too. with the savings we can pay the wages of lazzari and poli for example.

same story in defence, saving 4m from kala, 5m from janku, 3m from oddo, 3m from zambro, 2m from gooch, a few m from nesta's pay cuts, that's 20m+ to be saved, then we should get 2 fullbacks and astori back and our defense is fine, so we can probably save up to 10m.

but i think milan should start to rely much more on its academy after this season.

if we get honda, taiwo, cisshoko,poli, astori,paloschi- that's around 20m net wages and around 55m to buy them. and it's enough to be able to have a great first team lineup and bench, all while getting the wage bill down to 100m.

30m less losses would practically wipe out our losses, and we should also go farther in cl- probably 10m more revenue at least per season. so we should be fine.

then next big step is to get our own stadium, or even better kick the merda and the shitty milan council out of the san siro and renovate it. tbh this should have been done much sooner, if bayern can get 60m more revenue each season we could probably get something similar. and juve are going to have a major advantage as it is.

Dont know if someone already posted it...


http://www.acmilan.com/it/club/balance_sheet

patosheva said:

http://www.tuttomercatoweb.com/milan/?action=read&idnet=bWlsYW5uZXdzLml0LTM5OTg0

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Good news, thanks

1/12/2010
MILAN ON THE RISE

Milan’s achievements in sports prove to be useful also for the club’s commercial activity. As for the January transfer window, the Rossoneri won’t sign anyone, if not a great striker up to the task.

MILANELLO - Today, in the first part of his press conference, Adriano Galliani talked about the Compass’ Carta Viva Milan.

This is what Adriano Galliani had to say: "It’s an important deal, which sees our partnership continue. The Compass group has been operating for 50 years in the consumer credit field and is a leading company, part of the Mediobanca group. Compass has promoted a series of initiatives by issuing credit cards using club colours as decoration, but has decided to continue only with Milan. This fact makes us proud. The current season started well for Milan from a sporting point of view, in both the championship and in the Champions League, and is going very well at a commercial level. Milan, the company, with a record turnover, is exceeding its targets. We’re between 15 and 20 per cent. 1 July 2010 was a turning point, as now we have an deal with Fly Emirates which runs until 2015, a new contract with Adidas until 2017 and with Infront until 2016. We have several new sponsors and good figures. Our great performance on the field helps also in a commercial point of view.” Then Valentino Ghelli, Vice-president of Compass added: "This is an important year for Compass. We’re celebrating the company’s 50th anniversary. Moreover, it’s a source of pride and a personal pleasure for me to extend our deal with Milan. I’m not saying this because of my passion for the Rossoneri, but because of Milan, with its organisation, allowed us to carry forward our activity in the best possible way. Consumer credit has generally been negatively affected by the crisis, but we are in a countertrend, as our business is growing.” The closing thoughts on the topic came from Roberto Ferrari, the Director of the Marketing and Partnership Centre of Compass: "I thank Milan for all they’re doing, through their marketing structure, to make this partnership with Compass as fruitful as possible. We’ve already issued over 18.000 Viva Milan cards and we don’t want to stop here. It’s very important for us to exploit all the communication tools of the Milan Media Factory, including the social networking platforms. Interactions between us and the Carta Viva Milan holders will grow more and more intensive, as we’ll bring them even closer to the San Siro and to Milanello.”

Adriano Galliani, during the press conference, showed off his two Viva Milan credit cards which, as he said, he used a lot. In the meantime, Mr Ghelli reminded how much the Italian dailies wrote about Compass when a few years ago Galliani talked about signing Ronaldinho also thanks to the credit card: "Eventually we made it. By the way, seeing that the card is still working, we could use it to make a couple of new acquisitions from January on”, said Adriano Galliani.

Then the Milan CEO talked about football-related topics: "The strike? We’re having an informal League Assembly on Friday. It’s unheard of that a players’ association doesn’t listen to the Federation President, stands up and leaves. Yesterday it was Coni president Gianni Petrucci who said the most important things, I absolutely agree with him. The Coni president talked about the real problems. At the moment, the players have 30 per cent of votes in the Federal Council, whereas the Lega Serie A only 12. I believe it’s time to make some things clear, there are a lot of old problems that need to be solved. I repeat, Gianni Petrucci’s word were the most important yesterday.”
Galliani continued, saying: "Barcelona-Real? I’ll tell you a secret: a few years ago we were very close to Xavi, a player who I’ve always liked a lot. We talked to his father, we were really, really close, but in the end he has extended his contract with Barcelona. Barca play beautiful football, but I’m not sure that they can keep it up for 12 months. Their ball possession is extraordinary, their passing is very quick and at the moment they’re brilliant, but in football you have ups and downs.” On the January transfer window: "If it will be possible, we’ll sign a striker. We were more than deep in attack, but we have lost Pippo Inzaghi for the rest of the season. If we1ll have the possibility to bring in a quality forward, we’ll do it, otherwise we won’t sign anyone. Let’s not talk about other departments: we’ll either sign a quality striker, or we won’t sign anyone. If a new forward arrives, he’ll be a EU-citizen. Eligibility to play in the Champions League is not a priority for us, as we also have the championship to play. The striker has to be EU-citizen due to the regulation introduced last summer, which has weakened Italian football and as been heavily opposed by the Lega Serie A. Benzema? Florentino Perez said that the player won’t move in January and in any case, we have never asked for him. Matri? He’s a fine player, but president Cellino doesn’t intend to sell his players, let alone in January. Balotelli? He’s a player of Manchester City and is not on the market. Don’t talk about this idea. Clauses in Balotelli’s contract? Let’s say there are some of them, but it’s not something that would rule us out as his next potential destination. Balotelli is a great player, fun to be around and hopefully a Milan fan, but I’m sure Manchester City won’t sell him three months after his arrival in England. If the Ibrahimovic-Balotelli duo will be reformed, it will be at Milan, because we won’t sell Ibra.”
Finally, Adriano Galliani talked about Ronaldinho and Pato: ”Ronaldinho is held in high esteem as much as his teammates. Our coach has a deep squad at his disposal with only three injured players: Oddo, Pato and Inzaghi. Choosing the players from this squad, the tactician decides in total autonomy on who starts, who goes to the bench and who in the stands. Whatever one may say, our coach is absolutely free to make his choices. President Berlusconi praised the team last Saturday in Genoa for its performance, without any particular references. Pato? Now it seems certain that he’ll go to see a specialist at Duke University, North Carolina, in mid December. Pato joined us in August 2007 and didn’t have any serious injuries before 31 December 2009. In 2010, however, he was sidelined for a total of 152 days, picking up his first injury of the year in January, a few days before the Milan-Genoa match. We want to know why. We need Pato.”

Milan - Compass Partnership Event, December 1st 2010.

Hmm ... a thought that's probably discusse but I'm forgetting and want to make it clear. So we signed Ibra+Robinho through loans. I know we will have a better payroll situation after this season but is there anything(quote for wexample) that the money we have to pay for Robinho and Ibra is our trasfer-kitty during the summer? Do we have any financial muscle for summer or Berlu just decided to do the buys summer earlier? With the loan situations we sort of got our transfers but will face empty pockets during the summer.

I though We're only buy Ibra through loan (n with 3 installment too), not in Robinho deals.

robiho was payed 15 mil + bonuses ibra is loan

Jasper said:

Hmm ... a thought that's probably discusse but I'm forgetting and want to make it clear. So we signed Ibra+Robinho through loans. I know we will have a better payroll situation after this season but is there anything(quote for wexample) that the money we have to pay for Robinho and Ibra is our trasfer-kitty during the summer? Do we have any financial muscle for summer or Berlu just decided to do the buys summer earlier? With the loan situations we sort of got our transfers but will face empty pockets during the summer.

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Simple...

in the summer we will take Balo, Ganso, Van der Wiel on loan.

And Genoa will buy Schweinsteiger for us.

Cragnotti(?) style?

Robinho definitely wasn't a loan. We bought him for €18m and we pay him €3.5m a year.

Ibra was.

Don't have a clue what Cragnotti style is.

KujaIX said:

Robinho definitely wasn't a loan. We bought him for €18m and we pay him €3.5m a year.

Ibra was.

Don't have a clue what Cragnotti style is.

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Cragnotti was the president of Lazio during their most successful times. Also a very clever Italian entrepreneur.

Cragnotti presided over perhaps the most successful period in Lazio's recent history, ploughing in record amounts of money which attracted such luminaries as Pavel Nedvěd, Christian Vieri and Marcelo Salas. His successes included winning both Serie A along with the final European Cup Winners' Cup, both under the guidance of close friend, Sven-Göran Eriksson.

acmilan4ever said:

Cragnotti was the president of Lazio during their most successful times. Also a very clever Italian entrepreneur.

Cragnotti presided over perhaps the most successful period in Lazio's recent history, ploughing in record amounts of money which attracted such luminaries as Pavel Nedvěd, Christian Vieri and Marcelo Salas. His successes included winning both Serie A along with the final European Cup Winners' Cup, both under the guidance of close friend, Sven-Göran Eriksson.

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Yeah, what Wikipedia doesn't seem to mention is that Cragnotti continued buying players he hadn't money for (I'm thinking Mendieta, Veron, Crespo, Salas, Lopez,...) till 2002, when he had to sell alot of their star players - like Nesta and the same Crespo - to avoid bankrupcy. Cragnotti is a clear example of how you SHOULDN'T run a team. Thank God Milan has Galliani who refuses to spend any money Milan doesn't have.
Cragnotti style for me = making a great team and then keep on buying expensive players untill you go bankrupt

dhorasoo said:

Yeah, what Wikipedia doesn't seem to mention is that Cragnotti continued buying players he hadn't money for (I'm thinking Mendieta, Veron, Crespo, Salas, Lopez,...) till 2002, when he had to sell alot of their star players - like Nesta and the same Crespo - to avoid bankrupcy. Cragnotti is a clear example of how you SHOULDN'T run a team. Thank God Milan has Galliani who refuses to spend any money Milan doesn't have.
Cragnotti style for me = making a great team and then keep on buying expensive players untill you go bankrupt

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I knew that but didn't want to highlight the negative bit, he started something fantastic, his bad luck played a big part in his downfall. Alot of owners nowadays are very cautious so thats why u dont get such well equipped teams unless you have a multi-billionaire backing you.

Nowadays you have Preziosi, Zamparini and De Laurentis doing some good business. Hope neither of these get caught up like Cragnotti.

Cragnotti was a very clever entrepreneur in his professional life up until he got involved with Lazio right after that Eurobond Fiasco. Nevertheless we will never see a business man get trapped like that unless its in La Liga.

if this year revenues is record for milan ,and gallaini sad about 15 - 20 % increas so we will have around 270+ mil revenues it is fantastic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deloitte_Football_Money_League

milan biggest revenue was 240 mil

patosheva said:

if this year revenues is record for milan ,and gallaini sad about 15 - 20 % increas so we will have around 270+ mil revenues it is fantastic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deloitte_Football_Money_League

milan biggest revenue was 240 mil

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last year was under 200.

Senatore_M84 said:

last year was under 200.

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Do you read your profile page? I left you a message.

dhorasoo said:

Yeah, what Wikipedia doesn't seem to mention is that Cragnotti continued buying players he hadn't money for (I'm thinking Mendieta, Veron, Crespo, Salas, Lopez,...) till 2002, when he had to sell alot of their star players - like Nesta and the same Crespo - to avoid bankrupcy. Cragnotti is a clear example of how you SHOULDN'T run a team. Thank God Milan has Galliani who refuses to spend any money Milan doesn't have.
Cragnotti style for me = making a great team and then keep on buying expensive players untill you go bankrupt

Click to expand...

Yeah This was more on my mind than the wikipedia.

And thanks for reminding me about Robinho situation, everybody