RedBird Capital Partners, majority shareholders now of AC Milan have experience in sports industries and also in football. They already own a controlling stake of Toulouse who just got promoted this season to Ligue 1. They appointed former Liverpool director Damien Comolli as the president to run the club and take it to the next level to earn promotion, which they did.
The Toulouse president highlighted above spoke to L'Equipe about RedBird. Here are his statements:
"How much we spent? We invested €5.2 million over two seasons."
"The data department? I think there are more than 40,000 players in our database for whom we are able to bring everything out. These are data specific to us. We buy the raw data and pass it through our algorithms to make it into statistics exclusive to the TFC (Toulouse). Our recruitment cell is led by the former director of recruitment at Brentford. Our data manager comes from Airbus. He was building flight simulators. Our strategy and culture manager is a woman with three MBAs and a bachelor's degree in economics."
On RedBird and the American culture in football:
"Our shareholder RedBird and I joined forces because we wanted to work like that. RedBird bought an analytical company, Zelus, which is very well known in the United States. There are also nine analysts who work there exclusively for the club."
On the financial resources in the market:
"We will triple our potential investment in players. The payroll will double. We earn money but everything is reinvested in these positions with the infrastructure", declared Damien Comolli.
Therefore, RedBird are not seeking to make profits by 'trading'?
"There is no speculative mindset. We want to break away from this business model. Then there is also a reality. When we signed Branco Van den Boomen (26-year-old Dutch midfielder who came from the second division league: finished the season with 12 goals and 23 assists with the French club), we offered him Ligue 2 compensation and also anticipated the Ligue 1 rewards. Either the club follows his progress and that's happening, or either the player overperforms and we can no longer keep up with him. We will do everything to keep him while being realistic."
What is your goal in L1 (Ligue 1)? Damien Comolli said the following:
"To go as high as possible with a bold style of play. Our mathematical model takes more weight on the offensive than the defensive. We do not set limits in all modesty. What we did in L 2 is doable in L 1."
