AC Milan chief Gerry Cardinale says he and RedBird are committed to the club for the long haul.
Cardinale insists he wants to bring the good times back to the club.
He told the Financial Times: “What I’m trying to do is bring what I’ve learned in over 30 years in America to European football. There’s a great opportunity to bring Milan back to the glories of the past.”
During the interview, Cardinale explained how the entry of private capital into sports companies has led to “inflated valuations” based on “easy notions” about the future growth of the sector. Attacking rivals, the owner of Redbird said that some funds are “harmful to the ecosystem”, as the money is simply parked with little desire to improve the performance of the entire business.
“The problem,” Cardinale explains, “is that in my sector they are asset managers. They only want to buy and this is not good for companies based on intellectual property.”
The driving force, according to his reasoning, is the increase in the value of media and television rights.
“The owners of sports assets too often asked investors to pay even without rights like in the tech bubble, where you just put an ‘e’ in front of something and everyone wants it. But what does private equity bring? Liquidity, but there is a better way to do it. We need a softer attitude, because right now everything is inflated.”
