After slashing their wage bill over the summer, and going with a younger (cheaper) side this season, AC Milan have seen the benefit of that move on their bottom line.
On Monday, AC Milan announced an operating loss of €6.9m for the calendar year of 2012. That is a huge improvement over the losses in 2011 of €67m and €70m in 2010.
AC Milan president Adriano Galliani has revealed the club have saved €40-50 million on wages in 2013.
“We will save around €40-50m on the players’ wages in 2013,” the 68-year-old told reporters at the club’s annual general shareholders meeting.
“We paid for [Zlatan] Ibrahimovic and Thiago Silva’s wages until August. The players who were out of contract were paid until June. The sale of [Alexandre] Pato allowed us to sign a much younger player than Tevez. On a patrimonial level, it’s much better to have Balotelli.
“If we had sold Pato in January 2012, then Tevez would have joined Milan and then perhaps we would have won the Scudetto. Pato left Milan this year and then Balotelli joined us. In hindsight it was the right thing to do. Compared to when we sold Shevchenko and Kaka, we have now reduced our wages to a point where we won’t lose as much money as before.”
In regards to Uefa’s Financial Fair Play rules which come into effect next season, the announcement puts the club in a much stronger position to compete with Europe’s elite clubs than they were a few years ago.
“In terms of FFP, we now have a positive balance sheet because we can deduct the costs from the youth sector and stadium. We own all our players except Bojan and [Cristian] Zapata. And we own half of [Kevin] Constant.”
Milan have done a terrific job getting younger and cheaper players this season and with 5 matches to go they are holding on to that third and final Champions League place.
The loss included revenue from the Champions League this year, and it is critical that the Rossoneri finish the year in that position. Slipping into a Europa League position will undo all the good work that Milan have done cleaning up their finances.
