It is the day of protest by Milan supporters directed at the ownership. Below is the full text of the leaflet distributed outside San Siro in recent minutes by the Curva Sud Milano, as relayed via Milan News:
“What a wonderful club...
Exactly four years ago we were celebrating the victory of one of the most beautiful league titles in Milan’s history, a championship won while admiring on the pitch all the elements that made that team victorious even when, on paper, it was not the favourite: courage, grit, unity, togetherness, the desire to win, the strength of the group, and the incredible support of a fanbase capable of turning blood into fire, a true concentration of MILANISMO that gave the entire Rossoneri people an unforgettable triumph. And today, after four years, where have we ended up?
That winning team, which only needed a few additions of international calibre to aim for major achievements, has been completely dismantled by a totally incapable and incompetent management, led by that GIORGIO FURLANI who stubbornly remains standing on the ruins of HIS sporting failure, which is there for all to see, except for those who have no interest in removing him and those whose vision of Milan revolves exclusively around financial and speculative interests based solely on economic return, constantly and shamefully trampling on Milan’s history, prestige, tradition, and those ambitions that have always accompanied Rossoneri supporters.
GIORGIO FURLANI, at the helm of two complicit ownerships, has effectively erased that winning team and the management that built it, destroying everything good that had been done up to that point. And we are not speaking only about sporting results, because our love goes far beyond victories; we are referring above all to the fact that after a decade of anonymity, the ORGANISED SUPPORTERS together with the MANAGEMENT of that time had managed to create a unique chemistry, putting MILANISMO back at the centre of everything, with all that Milan can mean to its people. Today instead we are faced with a stadium emptied of any feeling and deprived of that soul which had always made it unique. We have seen embarrassing footballers arrive, the result of transfer windows managed by INCOMPETENT FIGURES, and just when we hoped this club had learned from past mistakes by choosing competent people like Igli Tare and Max Allegri, we witnessed constant interference in transfer decisions and squad management. An ambitious club, in January, would have had the duty to try, satisfying the requests of the manager and sporting director and instead, once again, accountant Furlani decided solely with economic interests in mind.
For some time we have highlighted the lack of planning, the absence of professional and high-level figures, the total lack of ambition: how can a Milan exist that does not fight for the title and is satisfied with second, third, or fourth place? How can the history of Italy’s most prestigious club be trampled on? How can the passion and faith of a people be betrayed by stripping away the essence of their team? The point is that championships can also be lost, but it cannot be accepted that the greatest objective for GIORGIO FURLANI, GERRY CARDINALE, and PAOLO SCARONI is Champions League qualification in order to cash in on the revenue that comes with it. It cannot be accepted that the priority is selling as many tickets as possible to any living being on the face of the earth (who regularly comes to the stadium wearing any football shirt except Milan’s), following the crazy commercial logic of MAIKEL OETTLE, poorly assisted by ALESSANDRO ZISSIS and SIMONE GAZZOLA, who know absolutely nothing about Milan’s history and its supporters.
This year, in fact, we have witnessed absurd initiatives such as the introduction of “Priority” (an extra payment to skip the queues at the gates) and the highly contested resale platform (which in everyone’s eyes is nothing more than legalised ticket touting), preceded by the ban on changing ticket names, in order to replace the most loyal supporters, now alienated from an unrecognisable club, with ordinary customers ready to spend crazy amounts, thus becoming accomplices in this show business (the €139 Curva ticket was the peak reached this year by the club). It can no longer be accepted that the management rejected thousands of people who went to Milanello on a holiday weekend to support their team (not only Ultras but also many clubs and families with children), effectively denying them even a simple greeting except for a few forced seconds from dozens of metres away, while throughout Italy many clubs, even those contested for years, do everything possible to always keep their supporters close. It cannot be accepted that the ownership stayed away from Milan for more than a year and a half out of fear of protests, only to reappear at the Derby when Milan were neck-and-neck in the title race (and even bringing bad luck judging by the results from that day onwards).
We have repeatedly expressed our dissent against the leadership, bringing 10,000 Milan supporters to Casa Milan last year and, in response to that strong but peaceful protest, the club reacted by blacklisting members of the organised support, some of whom were later also subjected to DASPO bans. A club that chose to deprive itself of its own supporters at San Siro, endorsing absurd bans on flags and banners that are freely allowed throughout Italy, without batting an eyelid and with the negative effects everyone could see: the stadium transformed into a theatre, without colour, without choreographies, and without the spectacle for which people in previous years willingly paid for a ticket. A club that has never once acted against visiting clubs in Milan, even though those same clubs have often profited from Rossoneri supporters in their own stadiums with ticket prices starting from €55 upwards.
In just a few years these people have achieved something we never thought imaginable: stripping Milan, the management, and the stadium of their soul; brick by brick Cardinale and his gang of good-for-nothings have consciously eliminated every trace of BELONGING and MILANISMO, values without which the Devil has become an anonymous entity without objectives or backbone, led by a group of bankers and financiers who know nothing about its history or the visceral passion surrounding it.
And so today, faced with yet another disappointing season (even Champions League qualification would only be the bare minimum and would not save the season!!!), after years of passing the blame onto managers, players, and directors, it is only right that GIORGIO FURLANI, the main person responsible for this latest sporting failure for the fourth consecutive year, PACK HIS BAGS and leave Milan. In the absence of buyers and with the mirage of a much-welcomed ownership change therefore unlikely, it is necessary to begin cleaning house from the top, and following the chief executive, other useless, harmful, and overpaid figures such as the President and many other incompetents warming seats on Via Aldo Rossi should follow the same path.
And the players?
Part of the blame for Milan’s current poor situation, this drifting along while waiting for the Champions League place so appreciated by the Cardinale gang, certainly also lies with the team, which lately in too many matches and against inferior opponents has delivered performances well below expectations and, above all, unworthy of a fanbase that, not even at Sassuolo last Sunday, stopped supporting for the full 90 minutes.
WE have always been there and always will be, through good and bad times alike, and we expect the players, just as they are ready to come beneath the Curva to receive applause in moments of celebration, to also be men capable of accepting whistles (first and foremost the captain) after disgraceful performances like last Sunday’s, because it would be far too easy to sound the ‘retreat’ as happened in Reggio Emilia.
That does not change the fact that, as already widely stated above, everything starts from the top of the club, which in turn transmits mediocrity, shallowness, and resignation throughout an environment that instead constantly needs motivation, drive, and initiative.”
