By David Gold
November 10 – Outgoing Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, could return to the post of president of the Italian champions, AC Milan, the club he owns, when the country’s political future is resolved.
Gazzetta dello Sport quoted Berlusconi as saying “maybe I will return to the Presidency of Milan,” and the 75-year-old has also said since announcing his resignation that he would spend more time with the Italian giants.
Berlusconi revealed earlier this week he would quit his post as Prime Minister after Italy’s cost of borrowing soared, plunging an already endangered Eurozone even further into its sovereign debt crisis after Greece’s Prime Minister, George Papandreou, was forced to leave his position as the country’s debts plunged his government into turmoil.
Berlusconi left the post of President at AC Milan in 2004 to comply with anti-trust legislation forbidding him from holding the position at the same time as being the Italian Premier, but once he has quit his political position, he will be free to assume the vacant position at the head of his club.
Berlusconi, who also owns the Italian media company Mediaset, bought the Rossoneri in 1986, saving them from bankruptcy, and though the media mogul’s political reputation is in tatters, his tenure with the Milanese giants has been far more successful.
He appointed the relatively unknown Arrigo Sacchi as the club’s manager shortly after buying them and he subsequently revolutionised the club’s style, winning two European Cups in a row in 1989 and 1990, making them the last team to achieve that feat.
In total they have won five European Cups as well as eight league titles since 1986, in large part thanks to the fact that Berlusconi has tended to give managers, the most prominent of whom have been Sacchi, Fabio Capello and Carlo Ancelotti, more time than most Italian sides to achieve success.
His 25 years at the helm of Milan has also seen a number of the world’s best players ply their trade for the seven times European champions, including Ruud Gullit, Marco van Basten, Franco Baresi and Paolo Maldini.
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