The Milan investigation is incredible: what can happen in Serie A

Milan investigation, here we go again.
While thoughts should be turned to the three days of European Cups and the championship which has reached its key moment, a new "scandal" could earthquake our poor Serie A – now increasingly mistreated by its main protagonists – and not only .
Necessary premise: this investigation by the Milan Prosecutor's Office into the Rossoneri remains to be deciphered, given that the investigators themselves, with the searches carried out by the Financial Police, want to understand who the owner of Milan really is.
The current CEO Giorgio Furlani and his predecessor Ivan Gazidis are currently under investigation; for both the accusation is an obstacle to the supervisory activity of the FIGC.
In the investigators' sights is the transfer of ownership that took place in the summer of 2020 between the Elliott fund – which also has relationships with the French club Lille – and the RedBird fund.
The first oddity is that RedBird completed the purchase thanks to a loan granted by Elliott.
Second oddity: the old and new properties would have the same address in Delaware: 1209 North Orange Street.
BlueSky – Elliott's minority shareholder at the time – has filed more than one lawsuit in recent years denouncing opacity in the sale of Milan, so far always losing.
Now, however, the Milan Prosecutor's Office has taken action and wants to see clearly.
“The circumstance would appear to emerge that most of the capital used for the sale came from a corporate vehicle not referable to RedBird itself – we read in the search decree – The hypothesis is that the Elliott fund currently retains substantial control of the company” .
The prosecutors write that "the hypothesis that the Elliott Fund currently retains substantial control of the Ac Milan company, whereas the actual transfer of ownership in favor of the RedBird Fund would have instead been represented to the FIGC supervisory authority".
“With regard to the search that took place today in its headquarters – we read in a press release issued by the Rossoneri club -, the AC Milan company is third and extraneous to the ongoing proceedings relating to the acquisition of the same, completed in August 2022.
The investigation, which also involves the legal representatives with signatory power, Giorgio Furlani and Ivan Gazidis, current and previous CEO of the Club, hypothesizes incorrect communications to the competent supervisory authority.
The company is providing full cooperation to the investigating authority." A denial also came shortly after from Elliott's spokesperson: "Milan was sold to RedBird on 31 August 2022.
As of that date, Elliott no longer has any shareholding or control over AC Milan." read also Serie A financial statements, profits and losses: ok Naples and Milan, a nightmare Inter, Juve and Rome Milan investigation, another "bomb" on Serie A This investigation into Milan is certainly not a bolt from the blue.
In fact, the program Report has carried out investigations on the Milanese club several times since its sale by Silvio Berlusconi to the mysterious Li Yonghong.
If the accusations prove to be well founded – they still have to be proven -, one might wonder how it is possible that the FIGC had not noticed this anomaly regarding AC Milan's ownership before.
Once again, Italian football seems to open its eyes only after the start of an investigation by a prosecutor's office, falling from the proverbial tree as recently happened with the betting affair by some footballers.
At the moment the Federal Prosecutor's Office has not opened a file on Milan while waiting for the Milan Prosecutor's Office to provide it with all the material; if the Milanese club were to be accused of violating art.
32 paragraph 5 of the code of sporting justice, then there could also be a penalty in the championship.
However, UEFA could have a heavier hand if a violation of the law on timeshares is found: one year's exclusion from all European Cups.
As happened last year with Juventus, Serie A is preparing to experience another championship final with many question marks.
If the accusations are confirmed by the investigators, it would be yet another incredible scandal that would hit Italian football: once the problem was the ultras, now the "pezzotto", but never the many dinosaurs who for years – if not decades – they govern the tricolor football which they are leading towards an inexorable decline.