The Purge

After years of suffering under his shocking narcissism and incompetence, the self-purported Milan fan Giorgio Furlani is finally gone. As is Geoffrey Moncada, widely thought to be a great scout, but clearly a horrific technical director. Also gone is Massimiliano Allegri (for the second time,) the "guarantee" for Champions League qualification, who could not even deliver that. And, catching strays, Igli Tare, the Sporting Director who brought Milan record capital gains in player sales last season, and also helped clean up an excessively bloated roster created by Exhibits A and B. After not reaching the Champions League qualification, Gerald Cardinale just came in with a flamethrower and took them all out. Or, as some are calling it, The Purge.

Sorry, but you must be this tall to continue to destroy Milan.

Giorgio Furlani, former Milan C.E.O.

From day one, it seemed odd that they would replace Ivan Gazidis, a man with over 40 years experience in football, with a portfolio manager who had barely been alive for 43 years. An observation that became more clear the longer Furlani stayed. While many fans who personally met him were charmed by him, the rest of us saw what he did to our club and were anything but. So, when he was literally sacked on his 47th birthday, he did not get sympathy from the fanbase as a whole.

Karma achievement unlocked.

The one they called the Little Napoleon traded football players like they were on the stock market. Last season, for example, he had an agreement with Maignan for a renewal, but as soon as Maignan made an error, he took the renewal back. We almost lost Maignan over that last summer, without the intervention of both Tare and Allegri, we most definitely would have.

We were not so lucky with Theo, whose went from conversations about a renewal to him being told to find another club, and then being forced to move to Saudi Arabia, as the club refused to accept any other offers for him. And now Leão, who had also been in negotiations for a renewal, negotiations that were stopped by Furlani this past season, is likely also leaving. Gerald immediately came in and said his time at the club was done as well, obviously having listened to his tiny (now former) CEO. 

Furlani, trying to pretend to care about Maignan and Theo in light of their landmark appearances.

Furlani claimed to be a master at making deals, but he was not. As CEO, he forced himself into being involved in every negotiation, but that was a huge mistake. For example, our players lost an average of 25-40% of their value playing under him, many of them even more than that. He bought high and sold low. Or, he gave away all our young, talented players for free + 50% resale value instead of selling them for cash + resale, or even better, developing them and selling them for a nice profit. The reality is that any sporting decision he touched turned to dust, the opposite of the Midas touch. He had the footballing valuation instincts of a blind man in the dark. Most fans could have made better deals than him, and we all saw how poorly his assessments and decisions were. Meanwhile, he was busy beating his chest about how great his deals were.

One most receent example of his pure and utter failure to properly assess sporting decisions was in the January transfer window. Milan were offered 27 year-old Donyell Malen for a €2 million loan with obligation to purchase for €25 million. Mr. Penny-wise and dollar-short turned him down for a free loan of 33 year-old Niclas Füllkrug. Malen went to Roma and scored 14 goals in 18 appearances, well worth their total €27 million investment for that season alone. 

Furlani trying to explain how not making the UCL is somehow better and cheaper than making it.

But now Roma also have a sure goal scorer heading into his second season of Serie A. Meanwhile, Füllkrug only scored one goal for Milan, and we did not achieve our goal of Champions League qualification. Malen's transfer fee would have more than paid for itself with the €50 million base income from UEFA this season had we qualified. But no, we got nothing. And now Füllkrug just goes home, and we need to find another player to replace him. How is that smart transfer strategy? It's not, it's just one more of Furlani's foolhardy decisions that literally cost the club both sporting results and millions of Euros in income.

Speaking of foolhardy decisions, last year, when things were so bad, it became apparent even to Gerald that we needed a real Sporting Director. Not only could Furlani not agree with everyone else on who that should be (a recurring theme with him,) but he kept saying that maybe we would not hire a Sporting Director at all. Like he actually thought that he was doing a great job, and that we should keep the status quo. Gratefully, when it was painfully clear we had missed every objective, Gerald finally told him to hire Tare, and that he would call him every day until he did.

Only Harvard grads talk about how much they didn't learn at their prestigious school.

Furlani complained about the death threats he had received after selling Tonali, which I do not in any way condone. But the way he complained says so much about who he is, he said 'they don't teach you about that at Harvard.' There are so very many things they don't teach you about at Harvard, and being a CEO of a major football club comes up very high on that list. No wonder, then, with his arrogance and ignorance, the fans gave him so much hate and blame. 

But for me, what enraged me the most, beyond the fact that he was given the job in the first place, was how he got it. He openly admitted that when Gerald bought the club, he marched into his office and said:

"I have experience with the club, I know how we can turn things around, and I would provide continuity. I also emphasized that I have, in quotes, his DNA (both went to Harvard and were investment bankers,)  but also that I'm Italian and a Milanista. The only thing I lacked was experience as a CEO, in sport or elsewhere."

The image that comes up when you look up "small man syndrome"

What kind of deranged, narcissistic little man goes to the new owner and tells him that he literally has zero qualifications to run a €1.3 billion football club, but that he should still hire him to do just that? Small man syndrome does not even begin to describe his sheer delusion and audacity. And worse still, what kind of ignorant moron actually does hire him? Furlani was right about one thing, though. He did know how to turn around a Scudetto-winning team... into a disaster.

When Maldini told us that it was his relationship with Furlani that got him fired, it did not surprise me. Gerald and Furlani are both cut from the same cloth: they both think that they are better and smarter than everyone else, and that they know more about running a football club than the people who have successfully run football clubs. Even after proving to the world that they cannot successfully or even competently run a football club. They still walk around as if they know better than anyone else, while showing the world the complete opposite. 

I still don't know if it's the arrogance, the ignorance, or the incompetence that is their biggest flaw.

Furlani was so successful in pulling the wool over Gerald's eyes that it took Milan fans specifically protesting him and creating an online petition that drew over 50,000 signatures within a week to catch the owner's attention. Yet when the Curva Sud unveiled their "GF Out" coreo aimed directly at him, he was caught on video smiling, though he claims it was a "stress reaction." Reports emerged that Furlani was considering resigning because he was so deeply hurt by the personal attack. He was hurt? What about the club, the team, the individual players, and the hundreds of millions of fans worldwide?

While many felt he had managed the club's finances well, the opposite was actually true. He was gifted the first ever positive balance for a fiscal year in decades when Maldini's leadership and collaboration produced a Champions League Semifinal qualification that provided significantly more income than expected. Every year after that, a player had to be sold in June in order to keep a positive balance. And each year, the net worth of that player had to be higher. 

The level of narcissism he must have to think he knew better than these two.

This year, for example Milan finished in the red for the first time under Gerald, because Furlani wasn't allowed to stick around and sell a big player. While commercial revenue has continued to increase since Furlani started, largely due to one deal with Emirates, the sporting side has lost not only in results, but in value. Significantly so. Our wage bill is higher, despite having fewer players. Yet the value of the team itself has decreased significantly, as well as the value of the individual players since he became CEO.

It is incredibly shocking that Furlani stayed for three and a half brutal years, while managers and everyone else took the fall for his complete incompetence. Zero accountability. And when he was finally sacked, he of course did not want to give up his salary from his recently renewed contract through 2028, either. Clearly, they don't teach the value of bowing out gracefully, let alone admitting defeat at Harvard, either.

Moncada at Milanello, in the shadows, because he had no relationships with the players.

Geoffrey Moncada, former Milan Technical Director

Moncada was originally our head scout. As such, fans loved and defended him. He was given credit for "bringing in" many players. Yet, after he was promoted to technical director... he could not put together a cohesive team to save his life. And he could not even trust his own purchases, either. Each year, they changed the entire team. But don't take my word for it. Here is what the legendary Boban said about him in an interview last year:

"He's an excellent scout, an excellent head scout. But all the scouting offices in the world know the same players... but afterward, we chose the players... what does he know about playing at San Siro or not? I think we showed we understood who could and couldn't."

Taking credit for other people's work was kinda his thing.

And that is important to keep in mind. Moncada, who never played professionally, worked closely with both Boban and Maldini, who are legends of both Milan and football. Not only do the results speak for themselves, the legends themselves have spoken about who actually did what, and why certain people were at the club. When Maldini spoke six months after he was sacked in 2023, he said:

"There are people who are passing through institutions like Milan, in the world of football clubs with an international profile, who have no real respect for its identity and history. They are not in charge and do not act to provide a vision for new generations of fans. They are often managers who come to work in a large club of great prestige and popularity to improve their CV and then also go somewhere else."

He celebrated as if he had won, did not even greet the players who actually did.

This very much seemed to describe Moncada. I remember the late win at the Marassi vs. Genoa, when Mike was sent off, and Giroud played in goal. It was such a tense match, and when the final whistle blew, did Moncada, the technical director, go to congratulate the players? No. He did not even have a relationship with our players. He and Furlani raced over to celebrate with the fans, as if they had played and won the match. It was about them, not the players or the team or the club.

But the joke is on him. His next job as Sporting Director of Nice seemed almost certain, he even helped pick their manager and was working on their transfer strategy for about a month. Then negotiations suddenly broke down and he was dropped like a hot pancake. It seems like you need more than just a good CV, to be more than just a great head scout to be a successful Sporting Director. You also need competency. And perhaps a bit of humility.

His entire aura was a red flag.

Massimiliano Allegri, former Milan Manager

What is there really to say about Allegri that I have not already said? I made my thoughts very clear about him the first time around. I even wrote a post in the form of a break up letter to him. When he was hired again, I warned everyone. And throughout the season, I pointed out his errors and shortcomings. In my eyes, we were lucky it did not end up any worse. Like at least our injuries weren't as bad this time around.

"The Allegri," by Edvard Munch

His exit from Juventus was most telling of his character. And now, his litigious exit from Milan more than a month after being sacked speaks volumes about who he is. He refused to go quietly and without his giant bag of cash. Because that's just who he has always been. He sued the mother of his child at least twice to try to lower child support, and lost. But it did not stop him from trying.

It is no secret anymore that the serious drop off in Milan's form was exacerbated after a physical altercation between Allegri and Ibrahimović in a restaurant in which Tare had to physically separate them. Obviously, I will address the toxic presence of Ibrahimović as well, but Allegri is a big boy, and is responsible for maintaining the team's mentality. We have seen Ibrahimović's meddling damage Milan's success before, but we have also seen Allegri's teams lose their mentality over and over. And having a team with this quality play an entire match with zero shots on target is definitely all about mentality. And that is on Allegri.

Amazing our our goals dried up with his incredible attacking tactics... 

It was very Allegri that his dismissal came after losing to Cagliari, his former club, and the same team Milan faced the day he won his very first Scudetto with us. Kind of a cosmic Karma that I truly hope completes his time at Milan forever.

It is interesting to compare what the media said about him last summer, vs. what they said about him when things went wrong, and what they say about him now. But some of us were right all along. Unfortunately.

That he was the only one who was reported to be upset about being sacked tells you everything.

Igli Tare, former Milan Sporting Director

The Curva Sud had openly supported Tare, the players had supported him, too. Many (but not all) did not want Allegri to leave, either, but Tare was universally loved and appreciated. If Gerald knew anything about football or even the finances of our club, he would have kept Tare and given him a raise. Because Tare cleaned up the insanely bloated roster of foreverloan players and actually sold them for profit. Over €100m in capital gains, actually, which may be a record high in player sales for Milan in a single season. And he did this while Furlani actively worked against him, blocking his transfer requests, denying him transfer funds, and signing players without his knowledge. It's actually incredible, when you think about it.

The man who brought Modrić to Milan should be given a statue, not be sacked.

I mean, the man brought in Luka f-ing Modrić. And Adrien Rabiot, for that matter. Transforming our midfield from a completely unbalanced hodge podge mix of redundant number eights with no defensive midfielders into a midfield that would have been the envy of Serie A under any other manager. In one transfer window. And, he got rid of Origi, the man on perma-vacation for a paycheck, six months before his contract ended. Just for those things alone, Tare should have had his contract extended with a pay raise, and also been given carte blanche on the transfer market this season.

Tragically, though, one of the only people in management with a lifetime of footballing experience, including experience at his own job, and the only one of this group who was a true Milanista, had his time cut short thanks to the other clowns. Well, that, and he likely spoke his mind, as the awesome people from the Balkans are inclined to do. Unlike everyone else who was purged, he actually cared about the club, the shirt, the results, and the players. And that was his downfall, under Gerald Cardinale. Because none of those things actually matter to him, he just wants to build a stadium and monetize the fans. But we owe a huge debt of gratitude to Tare.

Zlatan, a personification of sabotage and failure, is somehow still standing after The Purge.

Zlatan Ibrahimović, Whatever He Supposedly Does At Redbird/Milan

Perhaps it is Gerald's focus on draining all of us of our last penny that made him blind to the most toxic person in his management team. That title, as fans suspected for a while, belongs to Zlatan Ibrahimović. He has managed to turn himself into a meme on the global stage, whilst working hard both publicly and behind the scenes as Redbird's "Senior Advisor to Milan" to make enemies of even his most devoted Milan fans. And yet somehow, he and his BFF Jovan Kirovski, the one to oversee the relegation of Milan Futuro so Serie D, are the last ones standing.

The fans have spoken: "Kirovski, you amateur– resign immediately"

His toxic behavior began almost immediately upon his appointment as a Senior Advisor. He wanted Abate to play his son in the Primavera. Abate, a close friend since their playing days together, did not. So he was not offered a contract renewal, despite taking the Primavera to the UEFA Youth League Final. But that was not all. Ibrahimović also had Abate's father, who had been a goalkeeping coach at Milan for years, demoted and then fired without notice in revenge. 

Absolutely disgusting and unprofessional behavior. And costly, too. Our Primavera has never been the same. Meanwhile, Abate is the new manager of Torino this season. While Zlatan has continued to burn Milan to the ground, Abate managed first in Serie C, then Serie B, and now is a full-fledged Serie A manager, improving himself each year. Could there be any more proof of how wrong Zlatan was? Why yes, yes there is. That was only the beginning.

Not only is the love gone, but one has become successful, the other has become hated by his own club.

The following season, it has been reported that on Fonseca's first day, Ibrahimović kicked the manager out of the dressing room to address the players alone. He went on to give many postmatch "talks" to the team after big losses, talks that went on sometimes for hours. I was never a fan of Fonseca, and I don't think he would have commanded authority even without a Zlatan undermining him all along the way (notice Conceção never let that happen.) But what Zlatan did was beyond unprofessional, it was unforgivable. And certainly seems to overreach whatever a "Senior Advisor" is meant to do.

That season, we also saw the exit of D'Ottavio, a communications officer, and others directly related to Zlatan. And yet he and his buddy Kirovski kept Bonera failing massively at Milan Futuro all season until there were only 10 matches left, too late to save them from relegation. Literally, they started the year with the most valuable team in all 60 Serie C teams, they invested the most in the team of any other Serie C team, and they managed to get them relegated to Serie D. You have to be a special level of unhinged to fail that badly. At the very least, he has created far more problems than he has solved.

"Ibra, you saboteur, get out!" Sometimes graffiti does say it best.

More recently, there was the aforementioned public physical altercation with Allegri. Some of the reasons for their beef likely involve incidents such as Ibrahimović reportedly called some specific players to tell them they were not in Allegri's plans for next season. Or Ibrahimović calling Leão and Fofana and giving them different tactical instructions than Allegri. Or consorting with that ungrateful douchebag Cassano, who was openly criticizing Allegri and Millan every step of the way. Like as we were desperately fighting for that Champions League spot. He even received the worst possible endorsement, from Materazzi, who accused him of being the greatest Interista for what he is doing at AC Milan.

Why on earth would he do these things? Are there any better examples of someone sabotaging one's own team? How do you have Materazzi of all people praising you as "the greatest Interista" for what you are doing at AC Milan? Why don't we have a word better than "toxic" to describe someone like Zlatan? And why don't we have a restraining order against him coming within 100 miles of Milan, rather than being the one person Gerald has kept on to advise him?

"Get the sh*t out of our Milan," but Gerald failed to plunge the worst of it.

The Consequences of The Purge

Fans called to "Redo everything from scratch," and unfortunately, they are getting their wish. But not in a responsible way. Gerald sacking everyone all at once with absolutely no plans to replace them was beyond irresponsible, it was reckless and negligent. It is bad enough that he did it right when the transfer season was going to begin in full force, but he also did it in a World Cup year, when many players, managers, and more would be unavailable to negotiate deals for five weeks during the tournament.

Gerald initially said he would have replacements hired within two weeks, but that never happened. He has left Milan hanging in an indefinite limbo during the most crucial time. And while he has promised threatened to dedicate his entire summer to Milan to set things right, that somehow is even more disconcerting. The man who did not even know how many Champions League trophies Milan had nine months after owning the team, the one who sacked Maldini and then was shocked by the backlash... that's the guy we are supposed to wait and trust? This guy did not even fool me once. I'll be damned if I let him fool me now.

This post is inspired by Muse's Apocalypse Please