AC Milan £622million sale to Chinese investors back ON — but will be delayed until March 31 as wealthy buyers struggle to come up with final payment
Deal was originally set to go through, but Sino-Europe Sports Investment Management Changxing have pushed date back
THE sale of AC Milan to Chinese investors has been put on hold until March 31.
Originally, it had been reported the deal would be completed today — March 3 — and reports in Italy suggest owner, Silvio Berlusconi, is "worried".
Sino-Europe Sports Investment Management Changxing (SES), backed by Haixa Capital and Yonghong Li would have formally taken over, having already paid £168m in three separate instalments to Berlusconi’s holding company, Fininvest.
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And they would have paid the outstanding £269m, while also injecting a reported £84m into the team as agreed.
However, they failed to get the cash together in time for the original deadline and the deal has now been delayed — amid fears it would be called off entirely.
And report Berlusconi is getting more and more concerned.
Businessman Berlusconi took over as president of his beloved Milan in 1986 and immediately set about establishing the Rossoneri as the best club on the planet.
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He broke the world transfer record by paying £6m to sign Ruud Gullit from PSV Eindhoven a year later and repeated the trick twice in 1992.
First, he signed reigning Ballon d'Or winner, Jean-Pierre Pain from Marseille for £10m and then shocked the world when splashed out a whopping £13m on Gianluigi Lentini.
Milan won back-to-back European Cups in 1989 and 1990 — a feat which has never been repeated since.
And, in the former, produced one of the greatest displays of all-time, to beat Steaua Bucharest 4-0.
They reached the Champions League final in each of the first three seasons of the rebranding.
In 1994, they beat the Barcelona ‘Dream Team’ 4-0, to rival their 1989 performance.
Berlusconi is believed to have invested around £1billion in the club during his three decades in charge and, in 2009, reached as high as 12th in Forbes' list of The World's Most Powerful People.
Yet, his record signing Manuel Rui Costa for what now seems like a snip at £37m in 2001.
Milan added two more Champions League trophies in 2003 and 2007 before a rapid decline which coincided with Berlusconi’s third term as Italy’s Prime Minister.
The club are in disarray, but perhaps this new investment will see them back challenging Europe’s elite on the pitch and off it.