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The Italian football prosecutor’s office has closed proceedings over alleged irregularities related to the sale of AC Milan in 2022 by US hedge fund Elliott Management to New York private equity group RedBird.
Friday’s ruling by Italy’s football regulator FIGC protects the club from penalties in the upcoming Italian Serie A and European UEFA Champions League tournaments, and could also weaken a further investigation into the sale by Milan’s financial prosecutor’s office.
FIGC and AC Milan confirmed the decision and declined to comment further.
In March, officers from the Italian financial police raided AC Milan’s headquarters and the private residence of CEO Giorgio Furlani to collect possible evidence to support their claim that RedBird was not the true owner of the club, despite Elliott’s sale to the private equity group.
Milan prosecutors claimed in a search warrant that “the majority of the funds used to purchase the club came from an investment vehicle not owned by RedBird. The suspicion is that Elliott currently has effective control of the company.”
AC Milan, Elliott and RedBird denied the allegations but agreed to fully cooperate with investigators.
The investigation by the football authorities was triggered by the proceedings of the Milan public prosecutor’s office in March. The basis of the investigation was the documents seized during the raids by the financial police.
New York-based RedBird, founded by former Goldman Sachs banker Gerry Cardinale, acquired AC Milan from Elliott two years ago for 1.2 billion euros.
AC Milan has now returned to the top ranks of Italian and European football, making a profit for the first time in almost two decades. The club’s value has risen to €1.44 billion, up 35.5 percent from the previous year, according to data from Football Benchmark.
On Thursday, AC Milan announced that Paulo Fonseca is the club’s new coach. Speaking to reporters at the club’s training center in Milanello, near Varese, former soccer star Zlatan Ibrahimović, who was recently appointed senior advisor to RedBird, said that AC Milan’s priority under its new US owners is to make history “and to achieve that we need to win trophies.”
AC Milan lost the Serie A title to Inter Milan last month. “I will not accept defeat, we have to win and we will,” Ibrahimović said.