Giorgio Furlani spoke about the importance of the US market as Milan began their pre-season tour.
It’s the summer of Furlani: after the sacking of Paolo Maldini and Frederic Massara, the Rossoneri CEO, who replaced Ivan Gazidis back in November 2022, now has more responsibilities and is also leading the transfer market of the Diavolo.
Giorgio is currently with the team in the United States, where they have a pre-season training camp and also three friendly matches: against Real Madrid, Juventus and Barcelona. Furlani addressed the press yesterday:
“First of all, I’d like to thank a few people. First of all, thanks to the organizers of this tournament for having us here. Thanks to you guys for coming. Some of you have followed us in the past. Some of you are sort of newer to Milan, and I hope you will follow us for the rest of the season and more. Finally, thanks to my colleagues. The players, of course, they’re key, the staff, and then all of my other colleagues from the headquarters that have worked hard to make this happen, to be here and are fighting through the jetlag. We just got in here yesterday.
“So let me say a couple words: there’s someone who’s more interesting to speak to. He’ll come shortly. So just a couple of words. Why are we here?
“Number one, as we said, you know, this is a great tournament. We have a chance to play against some of the best teams in the world and to prepare for the upcoming season in the best way.
“Number two, we’re here because the U.S. is really important for us. The U.S. is the biggest sport market in the world. Soccer’s rapidly growing and I always call it soccer. I’m not just doing it for you guys, by the way. And so, this this is a really important market for us. It’s a top three in terms of international markets for us, in terms of fan base. We have 16 fan clubs in North America, 13 in the U.S.A., two in California, Northern California, in Southern California. And we hope to welcome a lot of our fans from these clubs, other clubs and just from the country at our games in the next few days.
“And the U.S. is also important and strategic for us. We are American owned, Fund Redbird Capital owns Milan. They operate sort of at the core of the intersection of sports, media, entertainment and culture. And L.A. is a capital of all of these things. L.A. is a capital of entertainment. We in Milano are capital of fashion, capital of cities around the world. I challenge us, but we don’t think so. And so fashion, culture, entertainment all come together. And it’s important for us to be here.
“Last time we were in L.A. was 2018. So five years. We would like to come more often. There are a couple of legends of Milan that are here: Daniele Massaro and Franco Baresi. They’ve played in L.A. a long time ago when I was talking to some of you guys, I don’t know if it’s fair to say that soccer was kind of nascent in the U.S., but, you know, you fast, you know, go from 94, the last World Cup played in the U.S. to 2023 and 2026, the next one. And, you know, it’s changed a little bit. And that, again, brings us to how important the U.S. is for us.”