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China scores by buying major Italian football clubs

For their part, Italian fans are wondering why a rich tycoon from Italy doesn't save the day and buy A.C. Milan to keep the ownership at home.

For all his Machiavellian maneuvering, Silvio Berlusconi could well have been the one blindsided in early June. As the 80-year-old former Italian prime minister continued the latest protracted negotiations over the sale of the AC Milan football club, this time to a group of Chinese investors, cross-town rival Inter Milan was sold to Suning Holdings Group, the home appliance chain headed by Zhang Jindong, China's richest man.
The move took many by surprise as the deal was consummated with no prior fanfare. Posters promoting Inter Milan and Suning were up the next day in the Beijing metro.With a reported June 15 deadline looming to finalize the sale of A.C. Milan, Berlusconi checked into a Milan hospital for heart surgery.It was just the latest turn in a saga that has seen Berlusconi appoint his then-29-year-old daughter to run the club, and a decline in victories, rankings and brand value for the storied football team.
It also followed a murky series of reports throughout last year that "Mr. Bee", a little-known Thai businessman, was willing to pay half a billion euros for a 48 per cent interest in the debt-laden club.In bars and trattorias across north-ern Italy, football fans were likely scratching their heads and wonder-ing why someone would pay such a vast sum for a minority interest.Whatever the plans, the sale of In-ter Milan puts yet another twist in the tale. Can Berlusconi finalize the han-dover of A.C. Milan, leaving both Mi-lan Serie A clubs in foreign hands? Throughout his colorful political and business career he has above all pro-claimed his abiding passion for Italy and its culture.of deeper concern to Italians is the ongoing sale of their national heritage. "I will always cheer for Inter but my heart will not be the same again. No doubt about that," said Edoardo Montani. Fabrizio Villa stressed that "for us who are fans of our beloved Milanese teams, it is not very satisfactory. Actually, it is extremely sad. We are Milanese, not Chinese.
"Some 200 AC Milan fans even started a symbolic crowd-funding effort, raising about 324,000 euros to keep ownership at home."
It is a symbolic action to show that Italian fans care about their team and that the destiny of our team is important to all of us," said Serena De Luca, who is leading the effort.The sale of Inter Milan could also dilute the appeal of A.C. Milan for Chinese investors. A compelling reason for them to buy is the estimated 600 mil-lion ready-made soccer fans in the world's most populous country hungry for a team to make them proud.To date it has been a painful wait. Trailing just behind Burkina Faso, Haiti, Equatorial Guinea, Venezuela, Belarus, Zambia and Jordan in 81st place on FIFA's world rankings, China's team is not making heads turn. The strategic plan appears to be to leverage the purchase of top-tier professional teams into a monetized fan base while building capacity in China's indigenous program. But with two Chinese-owned teams in teams in Milan alone, fan loyalty would be understandably split.For their part, Italian fans are wondering why a rich tycoon from Italy doesn't save the day and buy A.C. Mi-lan to keep the ownership at home. But insiders note there are none on the horizon with pockets deep enough to subsidize a financially sick soccer team for altruistic reasons.
Marcel Vulpis, a soccer expert and director of Sporteconomy.com, noted "it would be great to have a potential Italian entrepreneur or magnate interested in buying A.C. Milan, but it is technically rather impossible".
Only a few types of investors from across the world work with government-supported money, said Vulpis, which is almost a perquisite to buying a team for vanity or nationalistic reasons. So that leaves the Chinese and a handful of others. With its home economy slowing from previous torrid levels and concerns growing about devaluation of the Chinese currency, the Chinese are on a shop-ping spree in Europe. Now is the time to buy and buy big, it seems.Many Italian commentators say Berlusconi's heart is indeed in AC Milan, which he bought three decades ago when it was on the verge of bankruptcy. But pressure from family members and his cash-spinning media conglomerate Fininvest has possibly reached the tipping point as they are no longer able to tolerate the spending needed to prop up the once-mighty club, which has lost an esti-mated 361 million euros over the past 10 years.
And as the former prime minister sought a solution, it appears Zhang Jindong and Suning employed an age-old tactic by Sun Tzu, author of the ancient Chinese classic The Art of War, in the lead-up to the purchase of Inter Milan."Let your plans be dark and impen-etrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt," advised the 5th century B.C. strategist.Yet even as he recuperates in the hospital, the wily Berlusconi is no doubt plotting his next move.
Jon Van Housen and Mariella Radaelli are editors at LuminosityIta-lia, a communications firm based in Monza, Italy