The illusion of choice in a flawed structure: Milan yet to learn the weight of indecision

SempreMilan

·01 de maio de 2025

The illusion of choice in a flawed structure: Milan yet to learn the weight of indecision

Behind the facade of a meticulous and thoughtful club, the reality is that AC Milan are struggling when it comes to planning for 2025-26.

Far from the image of a club that are ‘evaluating all of the candidates before picking the best one’, Milan instead today appear as an entity incapable of convincing even one of the profiles identified for the role of sporting director.

Vídeos OneFootball

It is not a problem of there being names available – there are many, as the media continue to point out – but of leadership, of decision-making capacity, of political weight. And above all, of time, time that Milan continue to squander.

Paratici and Tare: missed opportunities or clear signals?

Two names have been closer than the others to joining the Rossoneri as the new sporting director, and there is the common thread that they are both without a club at present: Fabio Paratici and Igli Tare.

The former Juventus man was contacted, there was even talk of a possible and potentially decisive meeting, but after a brief rapprochement the ice has fallen again. In fact, despite a more recent meeting with Gerry Cardinale, Paratici has chosen to stay at Spurs.

An endless list to never choose

In parallel, the club continues to beat the drum of ‘active directors’. Tony D’Amico, Giovanni Sartori and even names that are difficult to hire like Giovanni Manna are being pushed, creating this notion that things will not be resolved until the season ends.

On the contrary, it is a narrative built to mask the lack of direction. In reality, we are faced with a well-known dynamic: presenting the impression of a choice between many options, to ultimately choose none. The philosophy of RedBird management is not that of calculated risk, but of sterilised risk.

Every decision is sifted through analysis, algorithms, cost-benefit assessments and the prism of internal politics. Nothing moves until every scenario has been thoroughly explored. But football, like life, does not wait.

Photos by Chris Brunskill/Getty Images and Marco Rosi – SS Lazio/Getty Images

Fonseca and the disturbing precedent

The choice of Paulo Fonseca to replace Stefano Pioli is the perfect example. He is a coach who won the race more through resistance than conviction, at the end of a summer spent between idle courtships and endless evaluations.

Fonseca was not the first choice, nor perhaps the second, but he was the final one left as a result of a period of indecision. It is a structural problem: Milan always choose at the end, when the market has already changed and the best have already said yes to others.

The real obstacle is the decision-making model: collegial, complex, paralysing. No one 0 not Cardinale, not Furlani nor Ibrahimovic — seems willing to take full responsibility for a choice. And so, to survive the ‘revolving door’ of management, they prefer to go round in circles.

You never get thrown out, of course, but you don’t move forward either. No one wants to be the next to fall, and to avoid that, just don’t choose anything yourself.

There was a moment when Milan acted with a certain speed: when they delegated everything to Jorge Mendes just before the winter transfer window, when the club were thinking about sacking Fonseca. The Portuguese super-agent dictated the guidelines, bringing with him the coach, the players and ideas.

If you want proof of the aforementioned, Mendes actually had to push the management to make the call to sack Fonseca, leaking the information about an agreement being in place with his client Conceicao. It was a circus then, and nothing has changed.

The name that remains

In the end, Tare’s name remains on the table more out of inertia than conviction. He is out of the loop, available, perhaps more ready to accept the conditions imposed by Milan. But he too seems to be waiting, stuck in a stand-by phase because, once again, the final act is missing.

The signature, the decision, the courage is lacking. There is the chance to hire someone who can begin work immediately and knows Serie A well, yet Milan – or at least not every layer of the bureaucratic arrangement – are not convinced.

Milan do not have a scouting problem, nor a contact problem, nor a database problem. It has a courage problem. In a system where no one decides alone, every choice is delayed until the point of forced decision.

Football at these levels is made of actions and those who do not act, in the end, condemn themselves to irrelevance. The feeling is that Milan need not only a sporting, but someone who has the strength to really choose. Even – and above all – in place of those who do not want to do so.