Cardinale: “Owning Milan is the most difficult thing I’ve ever done”

He rarely speaks, so when he does, it’s news. And he always says interesting things. Like this time, during the interview given in recent days in the USA on the podcast The Varsity. Gerry Cardinale, owner of Milan through the RedBird Capital & Partners fund, spoke about his Rossoneri experience. The first sentence that catches your eye is this: “What is it like owning a team like Milan? The hardest thing I’ve ever done. It’s a challenge, because the ecosystem in which I operate is very resistant to change.”

premier

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“In three years of ownership as RedBird we have been positive in terms of cash flow for the first time in 17 years. And I don’t keep that money for myself, I reinvest it in the team. We spent more than any other Serie A team in the last summer transfer window. We are building a new stadium. Not to pocket money, but to transform Milan’s financial profile and bring it to the level of Premier League teams.”

Cagliari-Lecce

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“For us, the real competition is not the other 19 teams in Serie A, but the Premier League. That is an economic black hole that drains wealth from the continent. They have almost four times the television revenue of the other European leagues and that’s a problem. Yet, in Serie A, the last team can beat the first on any matchday. It’s the most competitive league, but we don’t get paid for it. We can’t get significant deals for international rights. Why? Because the distributors they only want the best, from which the Super League phenomenon was born. In the United States, no one wants to see Cagliari-Lecce and this is a problem. Competition is the essence of sport, but it is not rewarded financially.” And then on the new stadium: “We are building it with Tim Romani, one of the best in the sector. Once 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.”

berlusconi

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They remind him that he defined himself as a “Berlusconi 2.0”. He smiles: “My PR has gone crazy. But what I meant to say is that I want to innovate, like Berlusconi or Steinbrenner (historic owner of the New York Yankees, ed.) in their time. Except that today you can no longer do it the same way: everything is too expensive, there are sovereign funds, billionaires. You have to find another way. There is an inertia in sport: it is thought that the more you spend, the more you win. But it’s not that linear. We need small market teams to thrive too. It’s the concept I deal with in Serie A and it’s the same one that has led to the gap between the Premier League and the rest of the continent. That’s where the situation becomes problematic. And what will happen, in my opinion, is that we will have to self-regulate. We will have to change the economic paradigm so that everyone in the ecosystem can support themselves. The key is: you have to be able to pay yourself. Just think: Paramount is 113 years old, Milan is 125. They are phenomenal brands, but they need to be rewritten. And this means anticipating where the market will go.”