Gerry Cardinale dreams big with Milan and reveals the'goal

Gerry Cardinale, owner of MIlan through the RedBird Capital & Partners fund, spoke to the U.S. podcast The Varsity about how his era in the Rossoneri is going: “It is a challenge because the ecosystem in which I operate is very resistant to change. But this is also the investment thesis. In three years of ownership of AC Milan, we have been cash flow positive for the first time in 17 years. And I don&#8217t keep that money for myself, I reinvest it in the team. We spent more than any other Serie A team in the last summer market. We are building a new stadium. Not to pocket money, but to transform the financial profile of AC Milan and bring it to the level of Premier League teams“.

“The real competition is not the other 19 Serie A teams: it is the Premier League– he added. That is an economic black hole that drains wealth from the continent. They have almost four times the TV revenue of the other European leagues and that is a problem. Yet, in Serie A, the last one can beat the first one on any given day. It is the most competitive league, but we don&#8217t get paid for it. We cannot get meaningful international rights deals. Why? Because distributors only want “the best” hence the Superleague phenomenon. In the United States, no one wants to see Cagliari versus Lecce, and that is a problem. Competition is the’essence of sport, but it is not rewarded economically”.

Chapter new stadium: “That is why we are building our stadium, with Tim Romani, one of the best in the business. Once it is completed, I want to share the model with the other Serie A teams, because they are not my real competition. My goal is the Premier League”.