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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

01:24certainly have to come down anyway. The reality is it can hardly be left standing around in a

01:29state of decay, and there would be almost no way to repurpose it. Plans to raise and

01:34replace the stadium have been circulating for years, but the same questions remain.

01:38Will they do it, won't they do it, why will they do it, and when? In our most recent issue,

01:42442's Tom Gannoy travelled to Milan itself and uncovered a tale of footballing royalty

01:47and architectural majesty, of political gridlock and bureaucratic inertia, of burning mopeds,

01:52and, inevitably, of Silvio Berlusconi. You can read the entire piece and of course

01:57many more in the new edition available now from the link in the description.

02:01But the key here is this. In 2022, Milan were bought by US-based investment group

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

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

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

02:23on with what they paid so much for. Time, you see, is money, and Redbird Capital want to make

02:30money from sellable naming rights, lucrative concessions, hospitality lounges, offices,

02:35concerts and NFL games, all revenue streams of which the existing stadium offers next to none.

02:41San Siro in its current form is certainly not swamped with amenities. Inside and out

02:46there is very little to be found in the way of comfort or commerce. The barren landscape that

02:51surrounds the ground is only punctured on match days by burger vans and people selling scarves

02:56and souvenirs. There are no cafes, no shops, no restaurants, barely anywhere for fans to

03:01congregate safely, and certainly no areas for families or children. Football as a spectator

03:07experience is virtually unrecognisable from 30 or 40 years ago, but in Milan, almost no

03:13compromises to the modern game have ever been made. To some, including fans of both clubs and

03:18tourists alike, this is what makes the stadium so important. This is why preservation as a time

03:23capsule of a different age should matter. But to the owners, this isn't a positive. This is paralysis,

03:30and one shared by the country's government after a 2020 investigation by Italian heritage

03:35authorities found no cultural or artistic reason to enforce any form of preservation on the stadium.

03:42In a story of so many lasting uncertainties, here are a selection of straightforward facts.

03:48The stadium will host the opening ceremony at the Winter Olympics in 2026. Salah's second and final

03:54term as mayor concludes in the same year, meaning Milan will have a new municipal governor. The

03:59current lease deal between the city and the two clubs, the basis for Milan and Inter's tenancy at

04:03San Siro, expires in 2030. The fact is, there are a great number of possible endings to this story.

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

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

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

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

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

04:36themselves and Atalanta, a curious trophy appeared in the Curva Nord, a moped belonging,

04:42so the tale goes, to the opposing capo and captured in a pre-match scuffle. They would never have

04:47managed it had it not been for the stairless access provided by the stadium's iconic exterior

04:53ramps. Nowhere else in world football would this legendary terrorist story, or act of hooliganism

04:59comprising theft, arson and criminal damage, depending on your viewpoint, have been possible.

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

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

05:14or in one rivalry, or even between the walls of one stadium. Lose those wonky and often problematic

05:21cultural touchstones, replace them with sleekly designed concrete revenue streams that appeal to

05:26everybody and nobody all at once, and you lose something of the game at the same time.

05:31And so, for fans of either Milan club, this semi-final is about so much more than the mere

05:36progression to the showpiece main event in Istanbul. It's now about the legacy, the fate,

05:41the history and the future of their very home itself,

05:45and that is a game of football that could simply only be played in San Siro.

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