Leeds United, Brighton and Bournemouth outbid AC Milan, not Manchester United and City, as club chief admits transfer ‘reality’
The financial reality for top Italian sides is that they cannot compete with even struggling Premier League clubs as the likes of Leeds United now out-bid them, Giorgio Furlani admits.
The AC Milan CEO has accepted that until broadcasting rights compensation evens out within the footballing landscape the Champions League semi-finalists have to go head-to-head with relegation-threatened top flight English sides, and cannot even compete financially with those at the top of the table.
The Whites offered Club Brugge more money to sign Charles De Ketelaere last summer but the Belgian was intent on a move to the San Siro, with history and prestige a key weapon still in the seven-times European champions’ arsenal.
Furlani told James Horncastle in an interview for The Athletic: “Milan gets out-bid by Bournemouth, Leeds, Brighton and Brentford, rather than by Man City and Man United.
“That’s the reality and that economic power is largely fuelled by broadcasting rights.”
David vs Goliath
The financial might of the Premier League is truly wild when it is laid bare in this way, and while fans of English clubs obviously enjoy transfer targets arriving at their clubs their counterparts elsewhere in Europe feel very much the opposite.
Bournemouth surely benefited from being able to spend over £50million in the January transfer window [The Athletic, 1 February], while Leeds haven’t quite so much from breaking their transfer record in the same month on Georginio Rutter, and signing up to spend almost as much on Weston McKennie if they stay up.
So while it forces historic European giants to look elsewhere the huge spending power in England doesn’t necessarily always work out as a positive.
Given AC face rivals Inter in the semi-final of the Champions League it looks like it is no guarantee of dominance in Europe either, and while Leeds United have a big history of their own it isn’t going to mean much if they fall back into the Championship.
On the part of De Ketelaere, he hasn’t proven to be worth the £34million the Whites were willing to shell out for him last summer, much more than Rutter has.
So while nobody is infallible in the transfer market, the English dominance provides a huge amount more leeway for failure but is certainly not a guarantee of success without sense to go along with the fees.
In other Leeds United news, a £300million rescue plan has been laid out by Phil Hay as the club stares down the threat of relegation.