Summer Mercato

[nefremo]

Welcome to the forum Jokka.

I don't think anyone on this forum is pissed off because we are not signing stars. We are pissed off beause the coach has publicly asked for a left footed right winger, yet we are negotiating with Biabiany - the exact opposite.

We are also simply trying to make sense of why the club doesn't seem to have even 10-15 mil available for transfers after all the talk of lowering wages, selling players, etc. The investment in youth is great, but we need investment for the present too in order to stay relevant in world football and keep our fanbase worldwide.

You seem very confident that we won't sell De Sciglio for example. But with the pattern that we've been seeing lately, what do you think will happen is Real came next summer and offered 30mil? I am not so confident that we'll reject. Bigger problem yet is that the money will likely not be reinvested and we'll be told that they are balancing the books and investing in youth again. A few years later same with Mastour, and so on.

There is something definitely going on within this club. The fact that we are investing in youth is not the answer to it all.

Now I'm not one of the people that think that we'll go down to Ajax level. We are just too big for that. Our fanbase worldwide is still huge believe it or not, and we are still top 10 in the world in terms of revenue and relevance. However if this trend keeps going for a few 5 more years for example, I don't see how we are going to keep up that revenue and relevance among the football world. I've grown up with Milan. A diehard fan since 91/92 and I breathe this club. But it doesn't take much to realize that there something seriously happening inside Milan.

[devoted_dm]

Mourinho has said that Van Ginkel will not be part of Chelsea's Champions League squad this seasion, while Torres has not been called for their next league match. I'll be happy to have Van Ginkel come, but it's a shame that it's just a dry loan. You never know though, he might end up loving life at Milan and request a transfer when the season is over. Players do seem to find it very difficult to leave us, after all.

[Jay Crisp]

I strongly disagree here. Firstly, we're talking about Berlusconi stripping the squad of the only real assets we have left, our young players coming through. These guys (with the exception of SES) have grown up in the Milan youth academy and are therefore invaluable for developing the right culture at the club, something which we shouldn't lose for the future. Finally a quick rundown of these players suggests they can reach the extreme heights of Messi or Ronaldo:

- Mastour: This guy was courted all over the world and we paid over the odds to get him at 14. Like Messi, he's made his breakthrough to senior level at 16 and honestly, you just need to see him amongst his peers (and age group) to see he's miles ahead of anyone coming through technically.

- SES: If you're talking about a player to anchor the team, then this guy did it two years ago in a period where we risked having a season like the last one. At the same age, Ronaldo showed technical qualities not normal, but hadn't shown the end product or maturity and directness that SES already does. Difference might be Ronaldo's got an obsessive personality to be the best and had Alex Ferguson to help him grow, but there's no reason El Shaarawy can't grow to reach similar levels.

- DES: If you can name me one defender of his quality at the same age, then I'll go on the record saying he's sell-able. I'm very confident I won't be on record saying DES is sell-able.

- Cristante: At the same age Pirlo, Xavi and Iniesta etc were making a name for themselves at youth level and struggled to break through to senior level for a while longer. Cristante's arguably ahead of them in this regard, but fundamentally we're talking about a player who's widely regarded as one of the best young midfielders coming through in the world game. There's a reason Benfica (a club known for their scouting and ability to develop young talents into players who are later sold at much higher profits) have pushed so hard to buy him.

I agree we're not selling any of our top youngsters. Well maybe SES if he doesn't deliver this season but certainly not DES, Cristante or Mastour. What people fail to grasp is Milan's entire business philosphy has changed. Instead of buying top players at inflated prices we're developing our own in house. Milan's repeated this strategy publicly over and over but people don't want to listen. Then they get dissappointed when we don't sign any big names.

Anybody who's been following Milan will realize we've been beating off competition to sign top youngsters. We've also extended our scouting network and Milan academies globally. Furtheremore, we've significantly invested in Visamara (youth complex) to upgrade facilities.

I fully expect most of Milan's future starting XI to be academy players. They've realized Barca, Bayern had success with this model and want to follow suit. It's frustrating now because it'll take 3-5 years to start seeing results. Even Barbara said don't expect results sooner than 53years. However, after that, we'll have a high quality squad with Milan's mentality acquired at low cost. We'll also have cemented scouting/training foundations to ensure future generations of success. Berlusconi and Galliani aren't idiots. In fact, they're further ahead than most clubs in this regard.

I disagree ,there is no plan beyond the cheapest way possible.
They can look at Barca Bayern ,but you do you see there is good home grown players ,but not a squad full they also spend hugely.Something Milan wont do.Now not spendimg massively is not something I expect ,and fully understand.But they go through projects like I do dinners ...and this will be the same.AC MiLoan

[ACMILAN1983]

Just want to thank everyone who has been involved in these discussions. I'm trying to understand different perspectives and see if there's any sense in everything going on. As you can probably gather, I'm struggling to make firm conclusions.

good post. agreed with everything except the part in bold.

There are rumours today (MNews.it, calciomercato) that Milan's going for this low-cost mercato to lower the costs of the club, to make it more attractive for an investor to come in, because without them we can't build a new stadium. That's in agreement with what you said. They, and yourself, are badly mistaken in this. It just does not make any sense whatsoever to want to decrease your club's value if you want to sell it.

Earlier this summer Peter Lim (now at Valencia) offers 300m euro to get 50% of the club, but Milan said 300m will get you 30%, and the deal was off. Today, Milan has sold pretty much all of their most valuable assets in the last 4-5 years, does not have any star player anymore, no marketable players either. We have sold 16,000 season tickets and the season starts tomorrow, a record low. The stadium will not just be boring to attend (not to mention painful watching the pathetic squad compete with the likes of Torino, Udinese, Verona for that 6th Europa League spot - our highest achievable target), the stadium will also be horrible to watch on TV. Who wants to watch a game with 75% of the seats empty? That will also be an important factor for the upcoming TV rights deal, meaning Milan will be televised less and less, decreasing our primary source of revenue from TV rights.

Not only will we lose a lot in TV rights, I assure you that our sponsors will refuse to pay us the amounts they pay Juventus, and other top European teams, because quite simply our team is not watched enough - why would they invest money on something that won't be seen when they can easily invest in a team like Southampton - plays in the EPL, full stadium, ambition, and so on.

Point I'm trying to make is with all these revenues going down - TV rights, marketing, brand being less attractive, no star players, no stadium, no success in football, our value ridiculously goes down. That 300m of Peter Lim had him ask for 51% stake, if he brought that today -- he's going to ask for 75%. It simply DOES NOT MAKE ANY SENSE to want to drop your teams value down to ask seek investors. Just sell it for less! If he took that 300m of Peter Lim for 51%, at least Lim would have invested and recreated the brand and Berlusconi would still own 49% of a developing (increasing in value) brand.

From a business/financial stand point-- it makes no sense what so ever for them to want to lower the club's value if they want to sell a stake.

It's like you telling me, I'll pay $100,000 to buy your full option Mercedes CLS 63 AMG, but I want $150,000. So I go on take away all the options from the car and then come back to you and tell you, here you go, now I'll sell it for $100,000 -- are you still going to accept it? Hell no!

It really pains me to compare Milan to teams like Southampton, but it is the sad truth, if I was an unbiased player and I'm 20 years old and have potential, I will chose Southampton over Milan as Milan have absolutely nothing more than Southampton except history. The sooner we accept this, the faster we can move on. We need major rebuilding and it will take half a decade or more to return to the top. And that's assuming we get sold to a rich investor. The sad reality is that, we're not going to get sold anytime soon. We are stuck with Berlusconi's ego.

Difference with what you're saying and what I said about "devaluing" is that we sell for less and we sell without debt (as devoted_dm has said). For investors, it's a far more attractive to buy a brand like Milan on the cheap and without debt to rebuild as they want, than to buy it at major costs and try to recover that money and cover the debt. From Silvio's perspective, it's apparent he doesn't want the cost of the club to be a burden on him, hence devaluing the club for this too.

Regarding Peter Lim, it's interesting that's the only real rumour of a potential sale all summer. I simply think that aside, we're not interesting many investors at this point in time. In that scenario, I think the deal would have fell through because Berlusconi won't sell a majority stake unless he get's the value of the club (I also think his pride means he doesn't want to play second fiddle at the club) or he'll only sell a minority share for what he considers a low figure.

There are a lot of things I agree with here, but at the same point, I think it's important to remember that football is not a normal industry. Berlusconi is looking for a minority shareholder, someone who can come in and finance the new stadium. Yes, he will lose money by lowering the club's value, an unfortunate side effect of the austerity policy we're seeing right now, but then again, his goal is obviously not to make money here.
As strange as it might seem, it looks as if he's actually doing this to ensure the long-term future of the club. Milan will be much harder to sell if the club is in debt or has other financial problems. Our current poor results are much less likely to put potential buyers off.

Yeah, this situation sucks and I hate that we're not doing better on the pitch right now, but it's worth it if this is what it takes to get our own stadium, because Milan needs it to be able to compete at the very highest level again. We simply need to make a lot more money than we do now. A new stadium would not only sell more tickets, but it would make us (and Serie A) more attractive to sponsors as well. So the long term financial gains are far greater than the short term losses.

I am not a big Silvio fan, but I do think he actually cares about Milan, and I don't think he wants to be remembered as the president who won everything and then destroyed the club.

Interesting viewpoint, although I'm yet to be convinced this is all part of the long term future. Thing is, as we continue to drop in sporting competitiveness, the value of Milan diminishes and so does the interest from investors (this isn't even looking at Serie A's lack of attractiveness already).

Funding a stadium by essentially destroying what we have in sporting competitiveness isn't the correct way to build. You need to lay the foundations (which as Jokka says we have in youth, but as nefremo says we don't necessarily have for the present). Even Juve on going to Serie B and coming back rebuilt to where they are now by building the sporting foundations to their recent success.

Fact is, all of the director's at Milan say it's fundamental that we reach CL football, yet they give Pippo nothing to actually help him achieve that objective. I honestly believe Seedorf got the maximum we can expect from this squad in the second half of last season and that would barely have been enough to achieve top 3 had we had those results all season. Fact is, this season other teams have their foundations and sides in place, while it's arguable whether we're even as strong as we were, never mind a new first timer coach.

However, there's one element about Silvio that could mean he still cares about how we do and to me that's his narcissistic side. I think evidence, particularly the report I posted yesterday about him wanting Inter before Milan, shows his entry into football was clearly business.

I agree we're not selling any of our top youngsters. Well maybe SES if he doesn't deliver this season but certainly not DES, Cristante or Mastour. What people fail to grasp is Milan's entire business philosphy has changed. Instead of buying top players at inflated prices we're developing our own in house. Milan's repeated this strategy publicly over and over but people don't want to listen. Then they get dissappointed when we don't sign any big names.

Anybody who's been following Milan will realize we've been beating off competition to sign top youngsters. We've also extended our scouting network and Milan academies globally. Furtheremore, we've significantly invested in Visamara (youth complex) to upgrade facilities.

I fully expect most of Milan's future starting XI to be academy players. They've realized Barca, Bayern had success with this model and want to follow suit. It's frustrating now because it'll take 3-5 years to start seeing results. Even Barbara said don't expect results sooner than 53years. However, after that, we'll have a high quality squad with Milan's mentality acquired at low cost. We'll also have cemented scouting/training foundations to ensure future generations of success. Berlusconi and Galliani aren't idiots. In fact, they're further ahead than most clubs in this regard.

Have we extended our scouting networks this summer? I've not heard anything like this and if we have, then buying Torres means it's a waste of resources.

Anyway, as you know from the Primavera thread, I'm generally in agreement with you about the youth policy. However, as I mentioned there, I'm not convinced we're showing any patience for the project to succeed (just look at the Cristante rumours). Speaking of Cristante, I ask anyone to answer how Van Ginkel is rated so highly that he could be the one to push Cristante out? People have mentioned him being a very good player here, so I'm just asking what makes him so good?

Big thing is, as nefremo says for that youth project to contain relevance we need enough to hold us over now and maintain relevance in the football world. We're taking massive risks trying to achieve a top 3 position with what we have. The odds are against us. You can't throw everything into one pot imo.

As a business we're really struggling too by the looks of it and it's hard to see us recovering in the foreseeable future. For me this relates to our sporting project. Getting pricey over the hill players like Torres and Essien etc means we're spending millions for players who offer little or no guarantees. From a business perspective, it would make a hell of a lot more sense to use some resources and particularly our supposed scouting network to get players in their early 20's who should develop into players we can sell in a year or two at major profit.

Ultimately, we did that with Kaka and Thiago Silva, but that model no longer seems to be the case (yet the likes of Benfica and Porto operate that way with great success). Something's not adding up with the way we're working if you ask me.

[Hasan Rossonero]

I am normally not this bleak, so I say this advisedly...people who are saying there is no project are right mostly. I think Barbara has brought in some impetus, but Berlu-Galli are

DES, SES etc. are all fair game at the right price.

[devoted_dm]

DES, SES etc. are all fair game at the right price.

I do miss the days when other clubs were worried about losing their best players to us...

---

Apparently Mourinho had a chat with Galliani yesterday, and they are now working together to get Van Ginkel to spend the next season at Milan.

And an interesting point was raised about Torres by a journalist, who said that he doesn't understand why he's asking Chelsea for money when he has the chance to relaunch his career in a new league, at a club that in terms of history and "coat of arms" is bigger than Chelsea. I do agree that he seems kinda greedy.

[xudong]

Mourinho has said that Van Ginkel will not be part of Chelsea's Champions League squad this seasion, while Torres has not been called for their next league match. I'll be happy to have Van Ginkel come, but it's a shame that it's just a dry loan. You never know though, he might end up loving life at Milan and request a transfer when the season is over. Players do seem to find it very difficult to leave us, after all.

Don't get your hope up. Let's assume that we get van Ginkel, and he does well, and loves Milan, and requests a transfer. What will happen next? We will not want to pay a high fee for him to be here. Remember Crespo? Even if we do want to pay, knowing Mourinho, he will definitely decline. Remember Courtois?

I can't believe that this summer mercato actually started quite decent, but in August it started to become so depressing to follow.

[millinarios]

With Galliani at the helm, this mercato was always going to be a letdown.

[devoted_dm]

Whoa! Apparently Kia Joorabchian has been spotted in Milan today, so now there's speculation that he's there because of Adel Taarabt, or even Soldado (much less likely).

Maybe Pippo will get his winger after all...

---

It seems like Joorabchian is basically there to try to convince Milan to buy Taraabt. I actually feel sorry for the guy, because he's a talented player and he really wants to play for us, but Pippo's not a fan. I wish we'd sign him though, he was great last season.

[Jokka]

You seem very confident that we won't sell De Sciglio for example. But with the pattern that we've been seeing lately, what do you think will happen is Real came next summer and offered 30mil? I am not so confident that we'll reject. Bigger problem yet is that the money will likely not be reinvested and we'll be told that they are balancing the books and investing in youth again. A few years later same with Mastour, and so on.

Because that would be totally against youth policy strategy. Btw youth policy doesn't mean playing youngsters like Gabriel/Niang/Saponara. It means developing first team players from academy like DES/Cristante/Mastour.

Last year Galliani said DES was shining example of youth strategy. He cost just E1,000. He knows we've waited 20yrs for another Maldini so won't sell easy.