Why AC Milan And Inter Want To Demolish San Siro Stadium

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For the moment The Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, better known as "San Siro" will remain.

Transcript

00:00 Italian football's toxic love affair with money and, by extension, the subsequent lack of it,

00:04 has meant that Serie A as a whole has really struggled to compete with the rest of Europe.

00:08 But the brilliant thing about football is that, for all the financial side has seemingly become

00:13 everything, sometimes teams can just push themselves well beyond merely the station

00:18 of their own spending power. Thus, despite an outlay of just 50 million euros between them in

00:23 the last 12 months, or about what Man City spent on Calvin Phillips on the other side of the draw,

00:28 both Milan clubs have fought through to a Champions League semi-final clash,

00:32 and one that might well become symbolic not just for the players or the fans,

00:37 but for the San Siro as well. In all likelihood, these will be the last major European Cup knockout

00:43 games to ever be played there. Put simply, if either team wants to make progression in this

00:49 competition a habit once again, it'll almost certainly need to be knocked down.

00:55 But why Buldo is one of football's most iconic venues? This is the story of the final years

01:02 of San Siro. The basic argument for the total destruction of Stadio Giuseppe Miazza is as

01:08 follows. In order to keep up with their European competition, Milan and Inter must increase their

01:14 incomes. To do this, both clubs need a new stadium. Either they demolish and rebuild at San Siro

01:20 itself, or they leave and build elsewhere, in which case the current ground would almost certainly

01:25 have to come down anyway. The reality is it can hardly be left standing around in a state of decay,

01:30 and there would be almost no way to repurpose it. Plans to raise and replace this stadium have been

01:35 circulating for years, but the same questions remain. Will they do it, won't they do it,

01:40 why will they do it, and when? In our most recent issue, 442's Tom Gannoy travelled to Milan itself

01:45 and uncovered a tale of footballing royalty and architectural majesty, of political gridlock and

01:50 bureaucratic inertia, of burning mopeds, and, inevitably, of Silvio Berlusconi. You can read

01:56 the entire piece and of course many more in the new edition available now from the link in the

02:00 description. But the key here is this. In 2022, Milan were bought by US-based investment group

02:07 Red Bird Capital. The 1.2 billion euro price tag was a record for a European football club

02:13 outside the Premier League, and the prospect of a new stadium with all of its attendant

02:18 money-making potential made up a sizeable part of that project, and now the owners want to push on

02:24 with what they paid so much for. Time, you see, is money, and Red Bird Capital want to make money

02:30 from sellable naming rights, lucrative concessions, hospitality lounges, offices, concerts and NFL

02:36 games, all revenue streams of which the existing stadium offers next to none. San Siro in its

02:42 current form is certainly not swamped with amenities. Inside and out there is very little

02:47 to be found in the way of comfort or commerce. The barren landscape that surrounds the ground

02:52 is only punctured on matchdays by burger vans and people selling scarves and souvenirs. There are

02:57 no cafes, no shops, no restaurants, barely anywhere for fans to congregate safely,

03:02 and certainly no areas for families or children. Football as a spectator experience is virtually

03:08 unrecognisable from 30 or 40 years ago, but in Milan, almost no compromises to the modern game

03:14 have ever been made. To some, including fans of both clubs and tourists alike, this is what makes

03:20 the stadium so important. This is why preservation as a time capsule of a different age should matter.

03:25 But to the owners, this isn't a positive. This is paralysis, and one shared by the country's

03:31 government after a 2020 investigation by Italian heritage authorities found no cultural or artistic

03:38 reason to enforce any form of preservation on the stadium. In a story of so many lasting

03:44 uncertainties, here are a selection of straightforward facts. The stadium will

03:48 host the opening ceremony at the Winter Olympics in 2026. Salah's second and final term as mayor

03:55 concludes in the same year, meaning Milan will have a new municipal governor. The current lease

04:00 deal between the city and the two clubs, the basis for Milan and Inter's tenancy at San Siro,

04:04 expires in 2030. The fact is, there are a great number of possible endings to this story.

04:10 Plenty of them are plausible, but many involve a gloomy climax for the Stadio Miazza. If one

04:15 thing is true, it's that nothing is settled yet, but the dark clouds are forming nonetheless over

04:20 San Siro, and time is not on the stadium's side. To be blunt, if you've never been, go soon,

04:26 as the future of a footballing icon is hanging by an ever-thinning thread.

04:30 When Inter fans dumped a moped over the railings of the San Siro second tier in a 2001 game between

04:36 themselves and Atalanta, a curious trophy appeared in the curvinord. A moped belonging

04:42 so the tale goes, to the opposing capo and captured in a pre-match scuffle. They would

04:47 never have managed it had it not been for the stairless access provided by the stadium's iconic

04:52 exterior ramps. Nowhere else in world football would this legendary terrorist story, or act of

04:58 hooliganism comprising theft, arson and criminal damage, depending on your viewpoint, have been

05:03 possible. And to some, that's a reason to burn the whole thing down and start again. But football is

05:08 entirely defined by its stories that could only happen to one club, or to one manager, or in one

05:15 rivalry, or even between the walls of one stadium. Lose those wonky and often problematic cultural

05:22 touchstones, replace them with sleekly designed concrete revenue streams that appeal to everybody

05:27 and nobody all at once, and you lose something of the game at the same time. And so for fans of

05:32 either Milan club, this semi-final is about so much more than the mere progression to the showpiece

05:37 main event in Istanbul. It's now about the legacy, the fate, the history and the future of their very

05:43 home itself, and that is a game of football that could simply only be played in San Siro.

05:50 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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