Ivan Gazidis On Why AC Milan’s New Stadium Will ‘Transform’ Italian Soccer

AC Milan’s “transformational” new stadium can be the catalyst for Italian soccer to close the gap on the “super league” English Premier League.

That is according to Milan CEO Ivan Gazidis, who tells me in an exclusive interview how the ambitious project can spark the “revitalization” of Serie A.

The stadium, which will be shared with city rivals Inter, will replace the iconic – but 96-year-old – San Siro. The project will reportedly cost €900 million to €950 million ($1bn) and be 100 per cent funded by the two clubs.

Gazidis says the clubs have worked in a “responsible and responsive way” with the Milan city council and mayor to secure approval for the new stadium.

“We know this is necessary for the club,” he tells me.

“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.”

Designed by Populous, “The Cathedral” stadium draws inspiration from two of Milan’s most iconic buildings – the Duomo and the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele. The project includes a pedestrian-only district with a 50,000-square-metre green area and public sport and leisure facilities.

Many consider the lack of investment in stadiums to be holding Italian soccer back. More than 90 per cent of professional soccer stadiums in Italy are publicly owned. From 2010 to 2020, 153 new stadiums were built in Europe. Only 1 per cent of the total investment was made in Italy.

Gazidis believes the new stadium will allow AC Milan and Inter to more regularly compete for the scudetto championship. While Inter is the current champion, Turin giant Juventus won nine consecutive titles before last season.

“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,” Gazidis says.

“That’s not healthy for a league that needs to grow its global appeal.”

Gazidis has seen first-hand the impact a new stadium can have. As a member of the founding management team for Major League Soccer, he encouraged investment in soccer-specific stadiums. There have since been 25 stadiums built or renovated for MLS clubs.

The Milan stadium is set to be completed in time for the 2026/7 season and Gazidis is convinced other Italian clubs will follow the example and build or renovate their own.

“And that will revitalize Italian football,” he says.

“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.”

That recovery is needed to bridge the financial gap between Serie A clubs and those in the Premier League. From 2017 to 2019, the Premier League generated three times more stadium revenue than Serie A and its broadcast deal is comfortably the most lucrative among the ‘big five’ European leagues.

Speaking at Expo 2020 Dubai last week, Gazidis, who was previously CEO at Arsenal, warned that without financial controls the gap between the richest clubs and the rest would widen.

“That’s a concern across European football. The gap is not closing, it’s growing,” he tells me.

“We’ve seen some of the smaller nations, with great teams, suffering badly because their domestic market is not big enough to support the kind of increase in spending that this new (broadcast) revenue allows. Great clubs like Celtic or Rangers or Ajax in smaller media markets have been struggling to keep up and find very creative ways to do that. I think they’ve done very well but it’s more and more difficult.

“We obviously see this tension growing within the European game. The reality is that the Premier League today is the super league. The rest of Europe has to find ways to stand and compete toe to toe with the Premier League.

“In the same way I don’t think it’s healthy that Juventus would dominate Serie A for a decade or more, we’re seeing that trend in France, we’re seeing it in Germany as well. That’s not healthy for competition.”

AC Milan was one of the 12 teams that signed up to the breakaway Super League for European clubs in April. At the time, Gazidis described it as an “exciting new chapter”. However he has since said the “access point” for what would have been a semi-closed competition was “totally wrong”.

While the stadium will bring a “dramatic” increase in revenue, AC Milan has been working hard to improve commercial income. In the past two years, the club has added 25 new sponsorship partners and, despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, raised revenues by about €92 million ($104.4m). For the 2020/2021 financial year, the club’s losses halved from minus €194.6 million in 19/20 to minus €96.4 million.

On the pitch, the situation also looks more positive. Milan was second last season, its first top four finish since 2013. The club’s last scudetto was two years before that. It is currently top, a point ahead of Inter having played a match more.

On Friday, French left-back Theo Hernández renewed his contract with the club until 2026. Signed from Real Madrid in 2019, the 24-year-old is an example of AC Milan’s strategy of buying young players with big potential.

“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,” Gazidis says.

“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.

“And 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.”

Gazidis, who received intensive treatment after being diagnosed with throat cancer in July, says the new stadium can set Milan up for a bright future.

“If all we do is look back at a glorious past, we’ll be left behind. It’s already happened,” he says.

“It won’t continue to happen. I’m very optimistic about what we’re going to do. And I’m very confident that we will give something to the clubs, the city and the next generation that will make them feel proud to be Milanese.”