COMMENT: So what is it? Vanity? Appeasement...? Because no-one can claim there's anything substantive in this 'created' role for Zlatan Ibrahimovic at AC Milan...
They're playing at it. Gerry Cardinale. RedBird Capital. Even Ibra. This isn't serious. This isn't solid. Concrete. It's all PR. Or the originator, propaganda. As the former Torino defender and now agent Massimo Brambati stated on Wednesday: "Ibrahimovic's entry is the recognition of a mistake. Bringing back a former player after you sent (Paolo) Maldini away... I would like to understand what's behind this project."
As we all would, because RedBird's announcement was just more fluff. More fantasy calcio. "Sourcing investment opportunities", read the press release, "advising on digital content and brand-building initiatives". And that's for RedBird, Milan's owners. For the club itself, apparently Ibra will act to "strengthen it's winning culture" and be involved in "player development and high performance training".
Are you getting picture? As we say, there's nothing substantive about this at all. There's no real nailed on role. It would appear Ibra will be flitting (or clumsily elbowing) around putting his tuppence in, even when uninvited and unwanted.
Indeed, there's a real arrogance about this. From the club's side, it's the sort of arrogance which would dump a Rossonero legend like Paolo Maldini and his offsider, Ricky Massara, a year after they'd pulled off the impossible. From the now ex-player's side, it's just a sheer lack of humility and understanding of what it takes to work in the higher echelons of institutions like Milan.
Zinedine Zidane wasn't like that. Years before the multiple Champions League triumphs, Zizou learned the ropes at Real Madrid. He took on everything with humility. He learned the market trade shadowing Jose Angel Sanchez, Real's effective vice-president. Before then, he worked on Jose Mourinho's staff and then would take up a position as an assistant to Carlo Ancelotti. All these years of work and study came before being appointed Castilla coach. Zizou's Champions League Treble was six years in the making.
Even Maldini, before his appointment as technical director, shadowed Leonardo for a year. And knowing what he didn't know, it was the Rossonero great's idea to bring in the more experienced Massara to work alongside him and Zvonimir Boban.
But five years into his second spell at the forefront of Milan, Maldini was dumped. A Scudetto. A return to the Champions League. And all done on a shoestring budget. Yet Cardinale knew better. Indeed, it was Maldini who fought tooth and nail with Ivan Gazidis, the club's former chief exec, to bring an ageing Ibra back to the club. Maldini knew the value of the Swede and what he would contribute, no matter his age. Yet now it's Ibra who has agreed to work for the man who not only axed Maldini, but perhaps has forever exiled him from the club. What's going on Zlat..?
This isn't the actions of a serious board. Of a proper football board. And we say board, because you need to separate the ownership from the traditions and history of this great club. It's the stuff of oil and water.
And they were so close. They really were. Maldini and Boban driving things from above. An Italian coach in Stefano Pioli guiding things on the pitch. Milan had shown they could succeed by going back to their roots. Back to tradition. As we say, returning to something substantive. Principled. Principles that would see Boban fired by Gazidis for calling him out after going behind everyone's back to try and hire Ralf Rangnick to replace Pioli. Three years on and Maldini suffered the same fate - and for the same principles.
"In a year with him (Cardinale), just one chat, plus four messages from him," Maldini stated a fortnight ago in his tell-all with La Repubblica. "He said we had to trust each other. I did it: how it went is known.
"I believe that the decision to fire us had been made months before and there were those who knew it.
"The contract, two years with the option to renew, was given to me on 30 June 2022 at 10pm: it was too unpopular to send us away after the Scudetto.
"(Cardinale wanted) to win the Champions League. I explained that a three-year plan was needed. From October to February I prepared it with Massara and a consultant friend of mine: 35 pages of sustainable strategy and the need for a leap in quality, sent to Gerry, two of his very close collaborators and the CEO (Giorgio) Furlani."
From a three-year, 35-page report, disregarded and dispensed, Milan now have Ibra. No experience. No record of success. Though he does have social media followers (why not just hire a bloody Kardashian?). In the world of RedBird and Cardinale, that's clearly enough.
But for the Rossonero. For Milan. The Milan of the Maldini family. Of Berlusconi. Of Rivera. This all smacks of vanity. Appeasement. Such decision-making doesn't belong in an institution like AC Milan.
