Have Milan wasted €55m? Understanding the San Donato costs [Bonus Article]

On the pitch, Milan are attempting to turn their season around. Off it, work is still ongoing to confirm a new stadium project with both San Siro and San Donato remaining as options. The truth is that we won’t get any proper answers until the spring, March-April or so, but some fans are rightfully worried about the supposed €55m spent on San Donato - only for the Rossoneri to potentially abandon it.

The stadium saga has been tiring for quite some time now and most fans don’t pay attention to the news anymore. It’s probably the right way to go, especially since the deadlines (when things can actually happen) are set for March-April as said. Then again, with the mercato underway and reinforcements needed, it feels appropriate to address the supposed €55m ‘wasted’ in San Donato.

For those of you who are new to the story, Milan essentially took over the San Donato project from another company called SportlifeCity. The initial idea was to build a multi-sports stadium with a capacity of around 20k, for which permits were granted by the city council. For various reasons, however, the owner Giuseppe Cassinari agreed to hand over the project to Milan (he’s a fan, among other things).

Since then, a lot of work has been done on the political side of things to get a ‘variant’ of the initial project approved by the council. Currently, the Program Agreement is ongoing with various institutions to assess the feasibility and find solutions to make the whole project possible. This is expected to be completed by the summer and at that point, the council will be able to approve the variant fully.

Given that it has been a tough fight to get the project off the ground despite the headstart, Milan have spent a significant amount of money. Mainly to buy the land which will host the stadium, from the stadium site to the surrounding areas for parking, but also to cover costs for consultants and so on. Tim Romani, for example, was hired specifically to deal with the San Donato project.

The first question, of course, is how much has this cost Milan? As revealed by the 2022-23 accounts, the Rossoneri granted a €3m loan to SportlifeCity when they acquired 90% of the company in June 2023. Furthermore, as confirmed by the 2023-24 accounts, a loan of €31.5m was granted in January 2024 to cover the purchase of the San Francesco land (the stadium site) as well as additional costs.