Another week of the Champions League is over, and a familiar club is still sitting out of it. AC Milan are losing money with every passing European night, millions they could have been making if they had qualified for the tournament last season.
But they didn’t. They finished eighth. And now they must finish third.
The price of missing a prestigious and lucrative competition like the Champions League is two-fold. There is the unclaimed prize money, tens of millions of euros, and then there is commercial revenue, the kind of money a club makes if they are winning games and, by extension, selling shirts and other things worldwide. It’s all connected.
That’s what Milan have lost over the years: not only money but relevance. They tried to reboot their brand with the opening of Casa Milan, the club’s new headquarters. They even added a new insignia to their away kit, just for the single season.
But it is not these kinds of gimmicks that work. It’s grand nights under the floodlights, with that familiar Champions League anthem playing before matches, that truly mobilizes a fan base and fills the coffers.
Milan received €88.9 million in winnings for making the round of 16 in the 2012-13 and 2013-14 Champions League. That’s a lot of money over two seasons; the club cannot afford to spend another outside the big tournament.
“The cost of not being in the Champions League is very heavy, frankly speaking,” AC Milan director Umberto Gandini told CNN.com.
Gandini estimates that the club is forfeiting some €40 million in guaranteed money this season. It is rather peculiar that they sold Thiago Silva and Zlatan Ibrahimovic to balance the books, and yet they are losing money because last year’s squad, in their second season without the two stars, was not good enough to compete.
In fact, one could argue that selling Thiago Silva and Ibrahimovic cost them more money than it raised. The two went to Paris Saint-Germain in 2012 for €62 million, which is the kind of money Milan could have made in the Champions League with them in the lineup.
Prize money is crucial in the world of Financial Fair Play, something Milan had to follow long before most clubs around Italy—and perhaps Europe. They started cutting costs—not least because of a lawsuit against owner Silvio Berlusconi and his holding company Fininvest that ordered him to pay €494 million in damages—and they stripped down their wage bill piece by piece.
Between 2007 and 2011, their wages jumped to €206.5 million (a record-high for the club, according to The Swiss Ramble) from €166.1 million. There was some reckless spending during that time, despite the sale of players like Kaka. Even before UEFA imposed cost-cutting measures, Milan had already found themselves in the red.
It is a great shame because Milan are the Champions League. They have won the trophy seven times, and they play with a certain mentality midweek. Even when they were struggling in Serie A over the past couple of years, Milan could still spar with the likes of Barcelona and make a special night.
The Rossoneri were even the last-standing Italian club in the competition last year, holding the flag on international soil when three-time Serie A champion Juventus could not.
Series A needs a strong Milan side, for its image and for its coefficient. And perhaps even the Champions League deserves a strong Milan side.
Another week of the Champions League is over, and a familiar club is still sitting out of it.