AC Milan's CEO, Giorgio Furlani, granted a brilliant interview to those at The Athletic ahead of the Derby della Madonnina. Here are his words on watching the 2003 derby in the Champions League while he was studying abroad in Chile:
"Spanish came in handy that night, and also in 2007 (laughs). I was in the Atacama desert in Chile looking for a place with a TV. I couldn’t miss Milan-Liverpool.”
On becoming CEO of the club he loves:
"People say being the CEO of the club you support must be the dream job,” he winks. “I always said: ‘Look, the dream job was a striker'."
Furlani adds:
"It’s very special and a bit hard to describe. It’s an honour and a responsibility."
On working with Elliott when Chinese businessman Li Yonghong defaulted on his debt in 2018:
"The situation was catastrophic. Historically,” Furlani observes, “Football is an industry of emotional decisions, driven by instinct. ‘What are the media saying? What do the fans want?’. Clubs have tended to follow that instinct and then backwards-rationalise it, creating a logic for it when the logic isn’t sound.”
On RedBird:
"RedBird are a serial investor in media, sports and entertainment. The convergence of these three things can take the club to the next level."
On the financial gap with the Premier League:
"As a starting point, the Premier League's media rights are three times what Serie A’s are. Milan gets out-bid by Bournemouth, Leeds, Brighton and Brentford rather than by Man City and Man United. That’s the reality and that economic power is largely fuelled by broadcasting."
On the new stadium project and how it's going slowly, Furlani said:
"A colleague sent me a presentation from 2018 the other day. It said that in 2022, we’ll be playing in a new stadium. It was ambitious, but by 2023, we thought we would be and I haven’t seen a single brick. That’s kind of crazy. You look back and think: ‘Four years! That’s a long time’.
"This is a very Italian problem,” Furlani says. “In Spain, they build stadiums. In France, they build stadiums. In Portugal, they build stadiums. In Turkey, they build stadiums. Italy needs to figure out how it can make stadiums happen.”
He added:
"There’s a stadium law. The point of it is that if you’re stuck, there’s a way to accelerate and cut through the red tape, but it doesn’t work... There are a number of ownership groups willing to invest money. It’s normally foreign ownership groups, so it’s foreign capital. That’s money coming into the country for development, infrastructure, job creation, GDP, branding — and effectively, what the system is saying is: ‘We don’t want your money’. It’s crazy."
Furlani on AC Milan's own plans:
"All options are being evaluated, including the old San Siro, which is an open process. It’s not dead."
RedBird are owners of Toulouse and AC Milan... The Rossoneri CEO commented:
"Milan are operated completely independently (of Toulouse). There’s no common knowledge-sharing, no working groups."
Furlani on his favourite derby moments:
"Cosmin Contra’s amazing goal in the 4-2 in 2002: left foot. Top corner... (Also), The 3-2 in 2004, when we were 2-0 down at half-time and then (Jon Dahl) Tomasson, Kaka, (Clarence) Seedorf. We went on to win the league that season.”
