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AC Milan meeting English Premier League club Manchester City in a preseason friendly at Yankee Stadium tomorrow afternoon. It's the latest push in the United States by the Italian football jats, a market they've seen significant growth in since being born by New York private equity firm Redbird Capital back in twenty twenty two. Please to say that joining us now to discuss is the AC Milan CEO Georgio Ferlani, George, Joe,
Let's talk about this move. We've seen these friendlies before, AC Milan on tour playing other teams from the Premier League and elsewhere. It feels like we're getting closer to playing a regular season game in the United States of America. Georgia, Is that true? How close are we to an event like that taking place?
Good morning, Thanks for having me.
You're right. We do these tours in the summer regularly to play friendlies against other top teams. Look, there's a regulatory challenges in moving abroad and into a different market domestic league games, but we certainly think if you really want to develop a fan base and you really want to expand your business in the US. This would be a critical part. So we will be working with CITIA, our league, and the other regulatory bodies to allow us.
You've mentioned the bodies you need to work with. Can you just build on that the obstacles for something like that to take place. Have you had a meeting with setting out the regulatory bodies about this already? Have you taken steps to kind of push this forward? How close are we to something like this?
We certainly have discussed it with it then needs to be discussed also with WAIFA and with FIFA and the authorities here in the US. There have been attempts in the not so distant past to play games. La Liga tried to but it didn't work out. So we'll keep on absolutely important. Just in the same way that American leagues have expanded globally by the regular season games not just friendly outside of America, we need to do the same the other way around.
It feels like ac Milan has become more American in the last year or so and maybe less Italian. The very fact that there wasn't a single ACMLAN player on the Italian roster of the Euros this summer, is that a financial decision or a sporting decision.
Very good question. We've definitely become more American. We're owned by an American firm, which is Redbert Capital Partner, which is a leading investor in sports media and entertainment, and we work very closely with them. We've also become more American on the field, so we have I think you were saying two American players. Our decisions on who to field are entirely sporting. Uh, there is in a decision on the base of, you know, what passport the player has,
but it's about how good the player is. Obviously, some players just by nature of being American. In our case we have two players, including Christian Voldovik, have a certain commercial appeal in the US, which is certainly helpful. But we don't drive sporting decisions by passport looks.
We were talking Georgio about how the United States is a really expensive market, that there's a lot of money here, and so that's one reason why a lot of people want to come here is because they're dollars and a lot of eyeballs to come. They're also a lot of dollars coming from the Middle East, and you're going to be focused off facing off with man City, Georgio. How open are you to tapping seemingly endless appetite in the Middle East to own clubs in Europe.
So we have at least in a different way, which is on the commercial side. So we've opened an office in Dubai, were the first European football club to open an office in Dubai. We've had a long standing fifteen plus year relationship with Emirates the airline. We have other commercial partners in the region, including the Kursoner Group, and so the way we've gone about it is not sort of via let's say equity injections, but rather via commercial partnerships.
Georjo, I just want to squeeze in one final question and I'll ask this and said, as an ac Milan fan, a lifelong fan like yourself, we both remember the ac Milan of Capello and Saki of Barrazia Maldini. We've both been disappointed with the performance of the team over the last twenty years and the trajectory that we've been on.
I remember when the club became a selling club, and I identified that summer when we've sold Ebra and we sold Tiago Silver to Paris Sanja Man it felt like that was a moment where ac Milan became a club that needed to sell players and couldn't buy that talent anymore. This summer we've got two big players, the left back
Theo Hernandez and we've got the goalkeeper Mike Manyan. I want to understand whether that's two talents that you need to monetize to fund the the project or whether a Cimlan is back in a position where it can keep world class talent. Just what is the state apply?
Yeah, So on the sporting side, our ambition is to fight for the title in Italy every year and to be competitive in the Champions League. Now we we do this while on the lets the other side running a business that is sustainable. So to give you some facts, we two years ago was a first year in which a cy Milan was profitable, first year in seventeen years and last year was the second year. And I don't think it's ever happened to a Cymlan to be profitable
in two consecutive years. What that translates into is we're not forced to sell players because of capital shortage or cash flow issues. So you know, I picking one word is that we don't need to sell anyone. So, as a fan, I'm telling you you shouldn't be worried about that.
Well, it's a fan. It's good to hear. Georgia. Good luck tomorrow and hopefully we can catch up soon. Georgia Falani there the ac Milan CEO