Milan Management

[AC_Troy]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian...4d6e9d4387

Shit storm

[reza]

New York Times and now Forbes ... well may be Fininvest (and perhaps specifically Berlusconi) must be blamed for not finding better buyers. Inter were sold to a known entity at least, to me there is nothing wrong in acknowledging this. I am not yet entirely convinced we are in trouble but others like Inter may have more certainty in management and ownership,

[ACMILAN1983]

Insufficient evidence?

12 points behind fourth place
Shady business with our owners ie loan after loan

If I'm UEFA, I'm not convinced the project will produce results by the deadline

Again, 12 points behind 4th spot is making an assumption the whole project is dependent on sporting success. Fassone has said on multiple occasions that what they're proposing takes into account that they don't reach this goal.  Not reaching CL hampers us, but it's not the be all and end all of this project based on what Fassone has said.

The situation regarding our ownership is being questioned in public and rightly so, but that does nothing to clarify what UEFA's position on that matter is. The whole point of FFP is club's are self sufficient and financially healthy. That doesn't mean Yonghong Li, that means AC Milan. They will most likely be taking into account AC Milan's debt as part of this agreement and not necessarily Yonghong Li's debt (or the newly founded organisations under his name to finance the club).

If you were in UEFA and part of the decision making committee, you'd see what's been proposed and have a better perspective on what the club intend to do. We don't know anything about what's been submitted, so we're not in a position to have a valid opinion on whether the project is convincing or not.

Now, Milannews has reported that UEFA has requested more supporting documentation for what's been proposed:

http://www.milannews.it/primo-piano/mn-v...one-275655

If that's true, we can likely be optimistic. Requesting information means that they are more likely prepared to agree to the proposal as if they weren't at all convinced the rejection would have come already.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian...4d6e9d4387

Shit storm

Not really, that article says nothing new whatsoever and simply cites a bunch of other sources and says a possible outcome out of this. I'm not really sure what purpose it serves tbh and worse still, it's using the Sun as a source! Frankly speaking, the writer should be slapped for even considering the Sun as a source for anything.

I'm aware I'm probably sounding defensive about all of this. The fact is I'm not, I've raised a number of concerns with Elliot and the lack of clarity on who is financing the club before and have said this situation can end very badly. However, what's really frustrating is there is misleading information being reported without backing up claims with clear facts.

I accept journalists will pose questions and rightly so, especially if they've done some homework. That's why the NY Times article does raise valid points for which there's not been answers to thus far. However, Marca, Bein Sport and even the Forbes article have done nothing more than rumour mongering.

[AC_Troy]

The 200m spent was a down payment for CL

We'll see what happens if/when players are sold

[ACMILAN1983]

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. If it's 200m was spent to try and reach CL, yes that's true, the management have openly said that.

However, if I remember correctly that 200m isn't factored in FFP investigations as we've not been in UEFA competitions.

If we fail to reach CL we will sell players, again management have openly said this.

[WCmilan]

Well clearly we wont reach CL. We're like 7 points behind Samp for a Europa league spot and they have a game in hand.
The only way is if we win Europa league, but I think that's a bit far fetched because I think if we catch Arsenal, Villareal or Lazio we'll lose.

[reza]

It is normal to have worries, not because of Marca or the Sun because of what we see as not a clear structure. Fassone has been open and transparent about what we face but above him it is murky and it won't depend on Fassone all that much.
But think this, Elliot are not in the football business nor in a loss business. They won't take on this expecting loan default or a lower valued business dropping in their laps.

[AC_Troy]

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. If it's 200m was spent to try and reach CL, yes that's true, the management have openly said that.

However, if I remember correctly that 200m isn't factored in FFP investigations as we've not been in UEFA competitions.

If we fail to reach CL we will sell players, again management have openly said this.

The point is we bought players to improve our team.  If we sell them, our team is going to be worse

[reza]

I don't think Dev or anybody is saying it is not a problem to be forced to sell any players. To be forced to sell is either because they are flops or we need cash. Frankly in the long term flop might be worse than needing cash because Milan as a name will have a semi good owner any way just how good is the question.

[ACMILAN1983]

The point is we bought players to improve our team.  If we sell them, our team is going to be worse

Well, I'd say that's true in part. Just to confirm, as Reza said I'm not suggesting selling players isn't a problem, ideally we don't need to sell and only do so to make improvements. Unfortunately, selling will be a reaction to avoid financial sanctions if we fail to reach CL. While CL is unlikely this year, it's too early to completely rule it out imo, but we need to step up big time and hope some results go our way to achieve it. Anyway, that's another discussion.

If we sell, I doubt we'll be returning to where we were a year or two ago. Most likely, we'll be looking at selling 1 or maybe 2 players to ease the financial strain and avoid FFP sanctions more than anything.

In theory this will weaken us as we're probably likely to sell Donnarumma or Suso, but at the same time we're massively underperforming this season and so even if we were to sell these guys and not replace them with the same quality, in theory at least we should still be challenging for CL places.

The whole point of our massive spending was to try and fast track a rebuilding process in Milan. Selling 1 or 2 doesn't halt the rebuilding process, it merely slows it down a little. The clubs above us built their sides on less resources than we have and the likes of Napoli and Roma (probably Juve's biggest rivals) have done it without spending massively, but instead through smart investments.

We have our concerns and a lot of them lie with the Chinese funding, but we shouldn't panic with rumours doing the rounds (not to say there isn't any possibility that Li has nothing and there's a financial collapse). We also have reason to show optimism about the future of this squad, it's not lacking quality and until results went sour, everyone was in high praise of Fassone and Mirabelli. We've got foundations we can build on and even without CL football, there's no reason we can't turn out ok, it just means we have to take a more pragmatic and prudent approach.