Rumours are (mainly Gazetta) that the Chinese will look to buy 30% stake in the club at first, then buy more over coming years to take majority share. Personally, I would be pretty shocked if at this point the club isn't sold the Bee, mostly because I don't think Silvio would have faced the public with him on Saturday unless things were all but done.
Regarding the sale of the club and FFP, I doubt very much the sale itself would cover debt in UEFA's regulations. I say that partly because until now the figures of the sale have always been noted as the value of the club with debt on top, rather than all inclusive (note that both Bee and the Chinese apparently reduced their offer after examining the accounts and seeing the debt).
The other reason I don't think this would work in the same way as selling a player is because of ownership. When a club sells a player and increases revenue, it's because they have ownership of the player. In this case, the club doesn't have ownership of itself, so they can't sell themselves and say it's an increase of revenue (only those in the world's oldest industry can claim that
).
However, going back to my original point about the valuation of the club not counting the sale fee as part of the debt, there are ways around FFP to cover those debts. I expect this will be done via some "creative" sponsorship deals, as well as possibly seeing partnerships being created as part of the sale. For example, Doyen's involvement is extremely dodgy as has been pointed out many times, and on top of that there have been rumours there will be numerous free players coming to Milan as part of this deal, which is surely in view of FFP. On top of that, one of the approaches I wouldn't be surprised to see is a partnership/ownership of a foreign, non-UEFA regulated club, which can act as a feeder with loan or cut price deals (e.g. Lampard to Man City). There's been a LOT of talk of targeting the Chinese market, would it be surprising to see some sort of partnership with a Chinese club?
Whoever takes over Milan will surely employ a highly aggressive approach to getting new sponsorship deals for the club, which is invaluable in modern football. It's something Barbara has started in the past year and again, going back to the United example, it's a model they've employed to achieve their targets.
I wonder if FFP will last anyway. Not to dilute the discussion about the sale, but right now all I see is FFP continuing rapid inflation at the upper end of the market, with the lower end now struggling to continue, with little to no chance of growing. I supported FFP, but am of the impression I was totally wrong about its benefits and cost.
