AC Milan's Deal with Mr. Bee Is Good, but Should Fans Expect Fast Results?

Almost lost amid the frenzy over Juventus' appearance in the Champions League final this weekend was a pretty momentous piece of news involving AC Milan.

In a joint statement from the club's parent company Fininvest and Thai businessman Bee Taechaubol on Friday (h/t Football Italia), it was announced that the long-awaited deal to bring a new influx of capital to Milan has finally taken shape. According to the statement, the consortium headed by Taechaubol—commonly referred to as Mr. Bee—will acquire a 48 percent stake in the team while president Silvio Berlusconi will retain the controlling interest.

Milan fans have long been hoping for a sale of the team—or at least a significant outside investment—to reinvigorate the team's dwindling purchasing power in the transfer market and pull the team out of the downward slide that started nearly five years ago.

The cash injection is much needed. After the 2009-10 season, Berlusconi was planning a massive summer transfer program in response to cross-town rival Inter's treble win that season. According to Salvatore Landolina of Goal.com, his eldest daughter Marina—chairperson of Fininvest and thereby controller of all the family's holdings—cut her father off that summer, halving his intended budget and beginning the austerity measures that have shackled the team to this day.

Flavio Lo Scalzo/Associated Press

Now that this announcement has been made, it needs to be looked into further. Many fans are hoping that it will bring immediate relief to their sagging team—but those fans may end up having to be patient.

As Gab Marcotti pointed out in his weekly column on ESPNFC.com, the Taechaubol group has not signed on the dotted line for any of this. What the announcement really means is that a preliminary agreement has been reached and that Taechaubol now has an eight-week exclusive negotiating window to hash out the fine details.

This means that the money isn't there yet—and it still may not come at all. According to the reports Berlusconi values the team at €1 billion, meaning that the price for Taechaubol is at minimum €480 million. That's a hefty sum, especially for a man who is not independently wealthy enough to pull a move like this off and needs investors to help him.

If one or more of these investors ends up unhappy with elements of the negotiations over the next two months, this deal could still blow up. If the money does come, it may come too late to make much of an impact on this transfer window.

Gabriele Maltinti/Getty Images

The other problem: however much the deal improves the team's finances, it still only solves half the problem. Berlusconi is symbolic of the stagnation that the team—and Italian soccer in general—has suffered from. Some initiatives, like their proposed new stadium in the Portello district of Milan, are moving the team forward in fits and starts, but other important aspects continue to lag behind.

In particular it's the transfer market that has become a weakness. Yes, they'll have more money to spend, can the fans have faith in the people who will be spending it?

Berlusconi will indeed remain in power—he told Sky on Friday (h/t Football Italia) that he will never sell the majority stake in the club. As long as he remains, so too will the strange power-sharing arrangement between Adriano Galliani and Barbara Berlusconi as vice-presidents of the club.

This is unfortunate particularly when it comes to Galliani. Berlusconi's long-time right-hand-man has shown increasing signs that he has lost his touch in the market. He has attempted to replicate the low-cost rebuild that Giuseppe Marotta used to kick-start Juventus four years ago but has failed utterly.

It remains to be seen whether he can regain some of his old magic when the money situation gets better or if he's truly lost the magic. But even if he can splash the cash, Milan's position outside of Europe leaves them an unattractive destination for the time being.

When you step back and really look, Taechaubol's minority investment begins to look more and more like a half-measure. Unless the old guard can recreate the magic they once had with the help of new money, the club is going to stay in place while teams like Napoli and Roma join Juve to form a new elite.

Taechaubol's money can only get them as far as the current power structure can take them—and recent history doesn't say that they can do it. Berlusconi and Galliani may be able to change that—but it's no guarantee.