Too many gears cause a jam: How Milan’s complex hierarchy works and the issues faced

As AC Milan continue to be linked with umpteen head coach candidates and as many striker targets towards the end of the season, the management and in particular the chain of command has come into question.

Antonio D’Ottavio, Geoffrey Moncada, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Giorgio Furlani and finally Gerry Cardinale: this is the decision-making process that are involved in making the big calls at Milan. Their roles, in order: sporting director, technical director, senior advisor, CEO and owner.

It is important to outline that from the start, because Milan are preparing to experience an intriguing summer which will see the birth of a new project after the now-certain dismissal of Stefano Pioli at the end of the season, a choice made after too many big-game failures.

In the background there is the complicated situation off the field with the investigation by the Milan Prosecutor’s Office regarding the sale from Elliott Management to RedBird Capital and the existence of a potential ‘mole’ within the club.

The accusation in all of this complexity is that there is a risk of overlapping in the decision-making chain. Furlani, Ibrahimovic, Moncada and D’Ottavio are the key players who – in hierarchical order – will have to agree on how to move forward next season.

What is the current chain of command? Moncada and D’Ottavio work with the scouting team and consult the algorithms to select players they deem to be attractive in view of the transfer window.

Ibrahimovic is the first filter, the one who selects which objective to pursue, then Furlani has the responsibility of making everything financially sustainable. That is the penultimate step before handing everything over to Cardinale for the final signature.

Unclear roles

However, increasing the number of gears also increases the risk of jamming. This seems to be the reason why to date Milan’s strategy regarding the appointment of the next coach appears far from clear.

Thiago Motta, Julen Lopetegui, Maurizio Sarri, Antonio Conte, Paulo Fonseca, Sergio Conceicao, Ruben Amorin, Mark van Bommel and Roberto Martinez are not just names fired out by the newspapers. Many of these have also actually been contacted by management, a huge and varied list that reflects the various thinking heads within the leadership.

In addition to slowing down the decision-making process, many brains also bring with them differences of opinion and judgment. For this reason, Milan currently sees itself overtaken in the race for Thiago Motta, the true first choice for the post-Pioli era, by the much more clear and structured Juventus.