Furlani discusses post-Tonali threats, RedBird’s goals for Milan and Maldini’s exit | OneFootball

As the CEO of AC Milan, there is a lot of pressure on the shoulders of Giorgio Furlani, and he is often the main port of call if things go wrong. Today, he spoke about his role, the past and the future.

Milan, at present, are struggling to reach their own ambitions and it is not the first time that this could be said since the RedBird era of the club began. There have often been frustrations about the way that the club runs; seemingly with a goal for profit coming above success sometimes.

However, all things are linked, and RedBird are adamant that success can come by using the current structure at the club, even if it may take time to see the fruition of this and this is shown by Gerry Cardinale’s extension of the Vendor Loan.

Ultimately, there is a lot to still be done with the Rossoneri, across several avenues, and Furlani gave an insight into things when speaking to Harvard Business School, with his comments being relayed by Milan News.

On the years with Berlusconi…

“I have very intense memories of being at the stadium with my father. Before graduating from Harvard Business School in May 2007, I went to South America with some classmates. That day, Milan was playing the Champions League final against Liverpool.

“And so, in the middle of the Atacama Desert in Chile, I did everything I could to find a television to watch the match on. That was our last Champions League victory.”

On Yonghong Li…

“I had never considered sports as a career path. I had looked at jobs in finance, landing an analyst role at investment firms Silver Point Capital and, later, Apollo Management. In 2010, I moved to Elliott, as an investment analyst, working on public and private equities, private financing and real estate.

“The mantra was that we could bring all kinds of investment ideas to the firm: if it looked like a good opportunity, we would look at it. In early 2017, I got a call from a lawyer who asked me, ‘Have you ever thought about investing in AC Milan?’ At the time, I remember thinking, ‘Football teams lose money all the time.’ So I said something like, ‘Are you out of your mind? Why would I do that?’ But then I found out more about it.

“He explained that Li Yonghong had agreed to pay €740 million but was €300 million short and would lose his €200 million pledge if he couldn’t raise the rest of the money within three weeks. I thought, ‘Well, this seems like a situation where we can get a good return on investment, regardless of what the business is,’ so I decided to take a closer look.

“What did we do after we pitched the idea to Paul and Gordon Singer and got their green light? We asked Li Yonghong, ‘How long do you need to pay it back?’ We suggested three years, but he assured us that he had the money and it was stuck in China, so 18 months would be more than enough.

“By July 2018, he had stopped putting money into the club altogether. Having defaulted on the loan, Elliott took over the Rossoneri club. To say that Milan was poorly managed is an insult to poorly managed companies; it was not managed at all.

“Elliott never intended to be in the business of running a football club, this was a very different investment than usual. We had to figure out quickly what the best path was to follow.”

More on the Elliott-RedBird difference…

“For Elliott, the priority was to restructure the team and stop losing money. For RedBird, the priority is to improve the team to move the business forward. And while for Elliott the focus was mainly on the sports side, now the focus is probably equally divided between the sports side and the rest of the business.”

On Milan to Elliott…

“Our goal became to stop the losses, to live within our means. First, we had to focus on improving our performance on the pitch. We knew that if we didn’t win more games the fans would stop coming and we wouldn’t have access to the revenues from European competitions.

“Here at Milan, by finishing in the top four in Serie A, we reach the Champions League which is extremely profitable from a revenue point of view. Secondly, as important as sporting success is, we realised that we didn’t have to go into a success-at-all-costs mode: the extra costs you incur to chase success can kill you financially.

Gerry Cardinale and Gordon Singer [Elliott]

“We needed to win more games by paying our players less. Our team was simply too expensive. Thirdly, we needed to invest on the commercial side. We realised that if the results on the pitch started to improve, we had to be able to monetise them through sponsorships and other commercial activities. We rebuilt the management team around Gazidis.”

On AC Milan’s results with Elliott…

“After seven years without being in the Champions League, we qualified for the competition at the end of the 2020-21 season. And in May 2022, in the last game of the season, we won the Scudetto. After winning the championship, there was a parade in the city.

“Two double-decker buses with players and staff left Casa Milan and headed to the Duomo in the heart of the city. That journey normally takes ten minutes, but in this case it took seven hours. Hundreds of thousands of people poured into the streets to come and celebrate with us.”

On the arrival of RedBird and Cardinale…

“We had several parties knocking on our door: it was no secret that Elliott was looking to sell its stake at the right price. In the end, Gerry was the most interested and willing buyer.”

On the role of CEO of Milan…

“In the summer of 2021, Elliott asked me to temporarily replace Gazidis, when he was ill. So, while he was in hospital, I helped run the day-to-day operations. And then when Gerry took over the club, I immediately went to him to let him know that I was interested in staying. I said, ‘I have experience with the club, I know how we can turn things around and I would provide continuity.’

“I also pointed out that I have, in quotes, the DNA, but also that I am Italian and a Milan fan. The only thing I lacked was experience as a CEO, in sport or elsewhere: I didn’t have those requirements. Gerry decided to give me a chance.

“The people who get to the top of football club management typically come from the sporting side, they are football experts.

“At some point they might take a break and become, say, sporting directors, where they are responsible for buying players. And if it goes well, they might get more responsibility over time and settle into CEO over time. But they tend not to have an academic background or business experience. Obviously I have a very different profile.”

On working with Gerry Cardinale...

“What I’ve learned from working with Gerry is that the more points of contact we have, even if they’re brief, the better. We talk every day, even if there’s nothing in particular to say. And then when he comes here to Milan, which is about every six weeks, we spend a super intense day or two together, with members of the management team and others, whether it’s the mayor of Milan or the person who’s helping us develop a new stadium.”

Photo by AC Milan

On Zlatan Ibrahimovic…

“He played abroad for Barcelona, ​​​​Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester United, while in Italy for Juventus, Inter and twice for us. He is a great team player, he wants to work together.”

On Maldini’s farewell…

“It was a historic decision to let him go, for what he meant to the club and for his authority. But if we wanted to realise the vision that Gerry had for the club we had to change and move forward.”

On the difference in his role between Elliott and RedBird:

“I’m very confident on the business side, but much less confident on the people side. In my role at Elliott, I had a small team of people and it was very clear what we needed to do: everyone was motivated and self-driven, and everyone had a background in a top business school and worked at companies like KKR or Morgan Stanley.

“But when you run an organization with hundreds of people from all sorts of backgrounds and roles, from store assistant to CMO, it’s completely different. I wouldn’t say this journey scares me, but I clearly see a gap in my education and I still don’t know if I’m good at being this kind of leader.

“I probably should have done this earlier, but I recently invited all my direct reports and some other relevant staff to a workshop. We discussed questions like ‘What is our North Star?’ and ‘What do we all culturally align on?’ I think that helped everyone understand that we need to work together to create our future.”

On the media pressure, and not, that there is at Milan…

“I was aware of the volatility that comes from the fact that the media and the fans talk about our club, but I understood that there is no way to escape what they say on television or write in the newspapers.

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“It really hits you on the bad days. And then there are even worse days, like when I receive death threats, for example when we sold Tonali, one of our best players. It was in those moments that I thought: ‘Okay, they don’t teach you these things at Harvard Business School.”

On the importance of reinvesting proceeds from transfers…

“Selling a player for €70m is a great deal, especially in the context of an overall business that generates €400m in revenue. But if we take that money and reinvest it in, say, four players who each cost €20m and they all turn out to be terrible, those assets quickly lose value and we won’t be able to resell them: the financial management of our team is extremely important.

“Sometimes it’s just about how we structure the contract. The wrong player bought for €50m on the wrong contract might be worth zero after a year, but the wrong player on the right contract might still be worth €30m.”

On increasing the club’s revenues..

“To do that, we need to focus on sporting results. Sporting success fuels revenues, and revenues support sporting success. It’s a virtuous cycle.”

On future plans…

“I want to continue building an organization that is ready to capitalize on our successes on the field with what we do commercially off the field. We are still too dependent on the first aspect, but we have made great strides in mitigating the risk of loss, and there is still a lot we can do.

“AC Milan is RedBird’s largest investment in terms of capital employed, and it is probably also the most noisy in the media, so I understand the need to make progress. We want Milan to succeed, Serie A to succeed, and the entire ecosystem to succeed.”

On RedBird’s potential…

“In the world of sports, media and entertainment, Gerry knows everyone and can call anyone. We have a much broader group of people and companies that we have access to with RedBird than when the club was owned by Elliott, and RedBird is more focused on growing the business side.”

On how his role will evolve…

“I still want to be the one negotiating the deals – I’m still a bit of a deal junkie – and I don’t think anyone can expect me to make the transition completely in my time as CEO. I asked myself a question when I thought about the opportunity: What would I regret on my deathbed? Not taking this opportunity to lead the club I’ve supported since I was a child, or throwing myself into it?

“Even on a day like today, when our arch-enemy can win the Scudetto at home [a reference to last season], and even with the death threats I’ve received, I’d make the same decision.”