CorSport: Too many voices, no decision – how Milan’s director search became a ‘puzzle’

SempreMilan

·2 May 2025

CorSport: Too many voices, no decision – how Milan’s director search became a ‘puzzle’

We are now in the month of May, and AC Milan appear no closer to appointing a new sporting director as the saga drags on.

As Corriere dello Sport report, the choice of the new director has descended into a bit of a soap opera, with a revolving cast and seemingly nobody within the current management wanting to make a courageous decision.

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D’Amico fades away

After the Fabio Paratici idea was abandoned, the CEO Giorgio Furlani pushed for Tony D’Amico, the current sporting director of Atalanta. However, that has fallen through too because Furlani’s counterpart Luca Percassi put up a wall.

“D’Amico will certainly wear New Balance next year [who will make Atalanta’s kits]. Regardless of the real or presumed interest of other clubs, he will have the enormous task of creating a competitive Atalanta next year too,” he said.

The CEO of the Bergamo club added: “We are happy with him, he is happy with us, and he will have a great responsibility. We still have four games left and now we are focused on this final part of the season and we will move forward.”

D’Amico was Furlani’s favorite in the race for the crucial position but now – barring any big surprises – he will have to change his approach.

Cardinale’s culpability

Gerry Cardinale, owner of the club, recently met with Paratici, but the fireplace – lit to mend relations last minute – came up with black smoke instead of white smoke. Translated: the former Juventus director will not arrive, and it added another bit of drama to the plot.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic is not as public-facing as he was, but his opinion is always considered. He is the Senior Advisor to the ownership and someone that Cardinale in particular trusts. The Swede put Igli Tare as his first choice.

Furlani met the former Lazio director several times in recent weeks, but was never fully convinced by him. On the other hand, Tare could decide to say no to the Rossoneri due to the long wait.

Management unchanged?

In short: the ideas are not very clear, time passes and there is no decision. That leads to a rather worrying possibility: keeping the current management structure without any additions. However, it is the last option to date.

After all, it was Furlani himself who confirmed the search for a sporting director “We want to improve the sporting part. In the last two seasons we have not had a traditional sports director. Now what we are evaluating is to take a more traditional sports director and reconsolidate those roles in one person.”

The will is there, but the road to get there is rather arduous, especially if there are too many different voices acting as navigator.