The owner of RedBird broke the silence to make the voice of the owner heard in a company that risks missing the most important objective. And he did it with a bit of self-criticism and by sending signs of change.
Overwhelmed by the storm of internal club settling and with the team adrift, Gerry Cardinale has chosen to come out into the open. He couldn’t do otherwise, after all, after the clashes between managers and with the technical part had become public knowledge, giving a partial explanation for the collapse of results in the last part of the championship, so steep as to put at risk the qualification for the next Champions League with related revenues.
The long interview granted to Corriere della Sera And Gazzetta dello Sporttherefore, responds first of all to this need: to give a signal of presence and closeness to the company in a very difficult moment in which the compactness that has been lacking would be needed. Cardinale does not make a generic appeal to the Milan world, even if he asks the fans to concentrate on the next, decisive, deadlines on the pitch, but makes the owner’s voice heard with the aim of transmitting inside and outside Casa Milan and Milanello the feeling that every act, word or behavior will not go unnoticed.
Milan’s results against Genoa and Cagliari will tell whether the operation, which was late given that the signs of disintegration had been evident for at least a month, is successful or not: two victories are needed to secure the Champions League or even less if Roma do not make a streak. In normal times it would be nothing to lose sleep over, but at the Rossoneri it has become so because the team hasn’t reacted to any internal or external stimulus for a while now.
Cardinale, the messages sent within the Milan world
However, the owner of the RedBird fund also focused on one series of messages intended for those who manage the Milan company on their own. The reference to the profound disappointment at the collapse of the last part of the championship (from the dream of the championship to the nightmare of missing the Champions League), the evocation of the term “failure” in the event that the situation is not resolved and the admission that no one is excluded from the end-of-year assessments, are direct warnings to those who live and work in the club.
“Everyone should expect that every season, but particularly those where performances are below expectations, everything will be re-evaluated and I will re-evaluate everyone and everything,” he said, later specifying that the reasoning is wide-ranging and concerns not only “replacing people” but also “examining the structure and the organization why we have not been up to par”. That’s why no one is safe from the summer exam, either Giorgio Furlani contested by the Rossoneri fans who ask for his head and who in the long confrontation with the two newspapers was never openly defended.
It will not have escaped notice that the only name mentioned is that of the coach, Max Allegri. The only one who is said to have already been the protagonist of a discussion on the present and future, the only one associated with the reasoning of RedBird’s number one and not because he is the subject of targeted criticism.
Cardinal, what did he say to the Milan fans
This step is also key in communication with the Milan fans. Cardinale does not have many credits to spend, on the contrary: he is disliked by everyone because he is considered the symbol of a management that does not have victory as its primary objective but only keeping the accounts in ordergenerate profits and build a financial operation that guarantees a return to the fund that took over from Elliott in 2022.
Questioning everything and everyone, including the man least appreciated by fans today, is a sign of openness and attention to what beats in the hearts of millions of fans. Time will tell if words will be followed by actions. The same goes for the claim that Cardinale has insisted on several times, namely that “it is absurd to think that he is only interested in money and not winning”, with reference to the rest of his professional career.
The facts say that when RedBird landed in Milan, Milan stopped winning. Even in this case, only concrete gestures will be able to convince the fans to change their minds. Cardinale, however, for the first time presented a self-criticism previously delegated to others. He did not repeat the already seen cliché of the manager made in the USA who tries to explain to Italian football how to combine results and sustainability, as if it were a recipe known only to him.
He said very frankly: “I don’t blame the fans for being angry, I’m angry too. They’re as passionate as me. But let’s try to support our guys, instead of tearing them down. I feel a huge sense of responsibility, when we don’t measure up and I see the reaction of the fans I take it very personally, I’m shocked. It gets under my skin and I feel a huge obligation to fix things with an urgency that no one should question. I wake up every morning with the desire to win and with a deep sense of disappointment and frustration when we don’t succeed.”
Whether it was just an attempt to gain time or whether it hides a turning point will be clear in the coming weeks, when Milan will know what the legacy of this poisonous season has been, who will continue to be part of it and who will have to leave. And, above all, what line of command and management practice, strictly separated between the economic and sporting parts, will become everyday life at Casa Milan and Milanello.
