AC Milan Fan Protests May Accelerate Sale Talk for Club

It was an eerie sight Saturday at the San Siro.  The massive 80,000-plus-seat ground stood almost totally empty.  The thunderous roar of the ultras in the Curvas was absent.

The only sound came from groups of children who had come to watch their favorite club play, still innocent enough to be ignorant of the controversy swirling around the club.

The empty stadium was part of a large-scale boycott engineered by the Curva Sud ultras group.  The fans have become increasingly angry over the seeming ineptitude with which the Rossoneri have been run of late.

After owner Silvio Berlusconi's daughter Marina—chairperson of Fininvest, the company that controls the Berlusconi family holdings—cut the club off financially in 2010, the team has started going downhill.  Top-level players like Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Thiago Silva were sold.  Their replacements have been cut-rate buys of over-the-hill players like Michael Essien and Sulley Muntari or Bosman signings like Riccardo Montolivo, who has yet to put in a full effective season even after being handed the captain's armband last year.

The roster is loaded with players who are old and overpaid.  Daniele Bonera somehow manages to get time on the field.  Giampaolo Pazzini is just about done.  Philippe Mexes, the team's highest-paid player, can be effective when his head is in the game but a walking red card if it isn't.

There have been youngsters who have come through that have given the team hope, but none have seemed to pan out.  Stephan El Shaarawy had an incredible start to the 2012-13 season but faded from overuse and has been plagued with injuries in the two seasons since.  Mattia De Sciglio, once heralded as the next Maldini, is likewise injured and seems to have regressed badly over the last 18 months.

Perhaps no position has been more infuriating for the fans than the midfield.  Two winters ago, Milan bought Riccardo Saponara from Empoli.  He arrived with great fanfare and was handed the No. 8 shirt that summer after he finished out the season at his boyhood club.  He proceeded to find the field only seven times last year and was only played once this season before being loaned back to Empoli for the rest of the season.  All he's done there is score three goals and notch one assist since his return.

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Even worse was this summer's mind-boggling sale of Bryan Cristante.  The most promising playmaker the team had seen since Andrea Pirlo left is now at Benfica.

Fans have kept on wondering why the team has fallen back on veteran players who aren't worth the money paid for them rather than initiating a true rebuild by giving the young players time.  The uncertainty finally boiled over this weekend when the ultras sent a message on their web site.

"There's one thing that's been lacking," the message wrote (h/t Yahoo Sports UK).  "Something we want as Milan fans and lovers of these colors...clarity!"

They then urged fans who already had tickets to remain outside the San Siro, and that if such a thing was not feasable to at least refrain from cheering.  "Today, more than ever, the Rossoneri must show unity of purpose and make sure the proponents of this situation fulfill their responsibilities," they concluded.  The posting also introduced the Twitter hashtag #SAVEACMILAN.

This isn't the first time in recent memory fans have boycotted their team to protest the decisions of ownership.  Last year, Lazio fans left the Stadio Olimpico empty to show their dissatisfaction of owner Claudio Lotito's handling of the club's winter transfer window.

That protest found a much more obstinate—and, frankly, narcissistic—owner who under no circumstances would dignify the demonstration with a response.  Milan fans, however, may end up achieving some of their goals.

Since Saturday's game—for the record a 3-1 victory over Cagliari—Italian media has swirled with even more reports of the Berlusconi family selling interest in the team.

The day after the match, La Reppublica (h/t Football Italia) reported that Thai real-estate magnate Bee Taechaubol, who has been rumored as an investor for the last few weeks, was already well into the process of of studying Milan's books in preparation for buying a 25 percent share of the club, with options to purchase more until he becomes the majority shareholder.

On Monday, another rumor had its day, after Tuttosport (h/t Football Italia) ran with reports in Hong Kong's Next magazine that Poe Qui Yang Wangsuo—known by the nickname "Mr. Pink" after the color of the popular energy drink he manufactures—had agreed to a deal that would give him 75 percent of the team's shares over three years.

The former rumor is likely the more plausible of the two.  Two weeks ago, when Romanian websites carried the news that Wangsuo had signed papers with Berlusconi to become majority shareholder, Fininvest issued a statement (h/t ESPNFC) that read in part, "[We] deny in the most categorical of ways that any kind of agreement has been reached for the sale of the stake in AC Milan."

The statement admitted that they had been approached about investment, but that "the proposition exclusively relates to a possible minority partnership."  The statement ended emphatically: "Fininvest is, indeed, not interested in relinquishing control of the football club."

While the Berlusconi's relinquishing control of the club may indeed be what the team needs more than anything in order to regain its footing, it seems that for the time being a minority stake—and the cash injection that will come with it—is the best fans can hope for in the short term.  Berlusconi has bullishly held on to his club, but if the explosion of new rumors is anything to go by, this large-scale revolt by the fans may finally have pushed him over the edge toward relinquishing some control over the club.