Ivan Gazidis talked to Forbes in an interview revealing insights about the new stadium project that AC Milan and Inter are working on together:
"We know this is necessary for the club. We've known for the last three years of working on this project that it must happen if the club is going to have the future that its fans want it to have. And I would say that the city of Milano wants its two clubs to have."
"It's transformational for the two football clubs, Milan and Inter, in their journey to be back at the top of European football. And it's transformational, actually, for Italian football because we've had a decade which has been dominated by Juventus in their new stadium. That's not healthy for a league that needs to grow its global appeal. And that will revitalize Italian football."
Gazidis continued:
"Football in Italy is such an important part of the fabric of the country. And I think one of the sad things over the last couple of decades has been the slow and steady decline of Italian football, in comparison with the other European leagues."
"This is a necessary step. If we don't build stadiums in Italy, we know what the future will be. We know what we're handing to our children. And the inheritance that they will have is a league that continues to be on a long, slow, steady decline. That's not a future that is a responsible one to hand to the next generation."
"I don't believe that is the future of Italian football. I think Italian football is absolutely ready for revitalization."
On Theo Hernandez renewal:
"Theo's a great example of somebody we consider to be a world class talent that we brought in and helped to develop with us. So he has grown with us. I would still say we are a work in progress. We are still progressing towards where we want to be. But we're clearly on the right path. The foundation of that is young players that develop with Milan into world-class talents which then raise the level of the team, which then increases our revenues, which enables us to invest more into the team to be able to retain them."
