Serie A Has Lost Bigger Names, But Tonali’s Exit Damages The League

Asked a couple of years ago whether he would consider a big-money move to the Premier
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League, Sandro Tonali was adamant in his response: “I know what I did to get to this jersey and I would never make the mistake of walking away. I know it’s difficult, especially in today’s football, but my dream is to become a bandiera (flag bearer) for Milan. And I will do everything to make it happen.”

Tonali took a pay cut to remain at Milan in the summer of 2021 after his first season was a disappointment and with the effects of Covid crushing European football’s finances. Tonali had been underwhelming, finding the leap from Brescia to Milan tougher than expected.

Tonali grew over the last two seasons, becoming a mainstay in the heart of the Milan midfield alongside Ismael Bennacer. Yet if Tonali had romantic notions of following in the likes of Paolo Maldini, Francesco Totti and Franco Baresi in dedicating most of his career to one team, Newcastle had other ideas.

Tonali’s €70m ($76m) deal to Newcastle is now complete, and for fans of Serie A, regardless of team of choice, this one hurts.

Make no mistake, Serie A has lost bigger names and better players over the last 20 years. Think back to when the league lost the likes of Hernan Crespo, Andriy Shevchenko, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Kaka in the 2000s, or Ezequiel Lavezzi, Javier Pastore, Alisson, Edinson Cavani, Paul Pogba and Mohamed Salah in the 2010s. High profile talent leaving the league isn’t news anymore, but the difference with Tonali is his age and that he’s Italian, playing for his childhood team. The team he took a pay cut to remain with.

Yet that show of loyalty wasn’t enough to keep him safe from the inevitable march of the Premier League and its money. Tonali is, according to reports, set to earn around €7m-per-season in wages, plus €2m in add-ons, for the next half-decade, more than triple his current salary.

But let’s not exaggerate here: Tonali is a good player, with the potential to become a great one, but he’s not one of Milan’s finest. At this stage, he’s not as important to Milan as Mike Maignan, Theo Hernandez or Rafael Leao, but it’s the precedent that his departure sets. RedBird giving the green light to the Tonali deal signifies every player in the current side is expendable for the right price. If a team like Newcastle, who’ve only appeared in the Champions League twice and never made it out of the group stage, are buying a leading player from the seven-time Champions League winners, one of Europe’s grandest clubs, what kind of message does it send? Why would Leao, Maignan or Hernandez want to stick around? There’s even been rumours that Milan would listen to bids for Hernandez, if a bid came in at around €100m ($108m) .

Of course, Tonali is being pushed to leave Milan, rather than it being the will of the player, but it reinforces what many have known for a long time: Serie A is merely than a transition league. Fabio Caressa, the long-time Italian commentator, compared the current status of the league to Ligue 1, in so far as Serie A now finds and produces players for the Premier League in much the same way as France has done for the last quarter century.

The ironic part in the Tonali deal is that Milan actually don’t need the money. Unlike Juve, Inter and Roma who are under mountains of debt, Milan have been run expertly since Elliott Management got their hands on the club. Their run to the semi final of the Champions League will see them in the black, or very close to it, once their 2022-23 balance sheet is posted later this year. Moreover, their qualification to next season’s Champions League insures more money. This isn’t a deal made under duress, likes the ones Inter made in selling off Romelu Lukaku and Achraf Hakimi two years ago. This is purely down to profit; Tonali was bought for €25m ($27m), now he’s being sold for three-times the amount.

One would assume that much of the €70m ($76m) will be reinvested back into the team i.e. Juventus in the summer of 2001, but there’s no guarantee of that. In the wake of Paolo Maldini’s exit from the club, it’s been clear there’s a lack of transfer budget again this summer, despite the money earned from the Champions League run. Selling Tonali would give new sporting director Geoffrey Moncada the chance to strengthen the team, with players like Samuel Chukwueze, Sergej Milinkovic-Savic, Davide Frattesi and, surprisingly, Romelu Lukaku all linked. Yet at what cost? It would be RedBird’s second major PR own goal within a month, and frustration is growing among the Milanisti towards club owner Gerry Cardinale.

The ‘money-ball’ approach, which Cardinale seems to favour, simply isn’t going to work with Milan. The two Champions League games against Inter demonstrated quite clearly many of the current bunch of players simply aren’t good enough. Major investment is needed this summer and Maldini recognised that, which was one of the reasons for his hasty departure.

In an indictment of where the game has gone in the last 30 years, in order to make money in football, you simply have to spend it, and Cardinale can’t rely on the club’s revenue stream. Milan’s revenue for the 2022-23 season is projected to be somewhere in the €350m ($382m) region, but it’s unlikely to increase any higher due to the current state of Serie A and zero progress on a new stadium.

The next cycle of TV rights is currently up for tender, with the Italian government relaxing the Melandri law and allowing foreign TV companies to hold the rights for up to five years rather than just three. The thought process is that a longer term would equal greater investment in the product. Luigi De Siervo, Lega Serie A president, aimed for around €1.1bn ($1.2bn) per-season for domestic rights, and around €400m ($435m) per-season for international rights, bringing in a total of €1.5bn ($1.6bn) per-season for five years for Serie A clubs.

On the domestic front, the bidding process has been shambolic. Rumours circulated that the total number from DAZN, Sky Italia and Mediaset amounted to €600m ($653m) per-season, some €500m ($544m) short of the intended target. However, Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis confirmed that the figure was actually lower than €600m per-season.

These kind of figures are disastrous for the Italian game, even with four different champions in as many years and three Italian teams reaching European finals this season, there seems little appetite from broadcasters to pay a high price for their own product.

Yet it’s hard to have any sympathy for the Italian game and the lack of money within it. Such has been the resistance to modernise not just stadiums, but the overall product, mentality and the league’s organisation that clubs have been over reliant on TV money for decades. No league had as big a head start as Serie A to stay ahead of the curve at the dawn of the millennium, yet the money was squandered on players; the popularity banked from the glory days of the 1980s and ‘90s dissipated by a scandal too many.

Should Italy fail to win the rights to host Euro 2032, with the decision due in September, things could get even bleaker. If the bid fails, then it’s status as the new Ligue 1 will be prolonged, and a Tonali, or two, will leave the league every summer.