AC Milan is a wasting asset.
While Silvio Berlusconi fiddles around trying to find an investor so he can fund a Champions League caliber team and build a new stadium, the popularity and finances of his Serie A team are eroding rapidly relative to the other top European soccer teams.
According to the new Money League soccer report by
Since 2011, AC Milan's revenue has dropped to $146 million from $215 million, despite richer new domestic and international television deals.
Deloitte's commentary sums it up: "AC Milan finished outside the Money League top ten for the first time in the last edition, and the club have dropped a further two places from 12th to 14th following the 2014/15 season. Milan were one of only two Money League clubs to experience a decline in overall revenue, but the Rossoneri’s €50.6m (20%) decrease was by far the largest of these. The club experienced a significant fall in broadcast revenue, primarily due to the absence of any UEFA distributions (€39.7m in 2013/14) for the first time since 1998/99. Milan has failed to return to European competition in 2015/16 following the club’s disappointing 2014/15 campaign in which it finished 10th in Serie A and was eliminated from the Coppa Italia at the quarter-final stage."
AC Milan, currently in sixth place in Serie A, loaned Stephan El Shaarawy to AS Roma yesterday with an option to buy for $14 million. It's gotten so sad that AC Milan was mocked last week by rival fans amid claims the team sold its bus to cut costs.
The answer to Berlusconi's problems was expected to come from a partial sale to Thai businessman Bee Taechaubol. But I wrote in March of last year that Taechaubol doesn't have the money to buy half the Rossoneri. More likely, he is trying to dig up some Chinese investors with real money. Still, the fiddling by Berlusconi continues, with the deal on in June, in doubt in November, and now supposedly back yet again.
All the while, AC Milan keeps falling further behind its competitors.
