Milan save €40-50m on wages

AC Milan president Adriano Galliani has revealed the club have saved €40-50 million on wages in 2013.

The Rossoneri announced a loss of €6.9m in 2012 which was a huge improvement from €67m in 2011 and €70m in 2010.

The entrepreneur says that the club are no longer losing as much money as they have been in the past by cutting down on their wage bill and becoming smarter in the transfer market.

"We will save around €40-50m on the players' wages in 2013," the 68-year-old told reporters at the club's annual general shareholders meeting.

"We paid for [Zlatan] Ibrahimovic and Thiago Silva's wages until August. The players who were out of contract were paid until June. The sale of [Alexandre] Pato allowed us to sign a much younger player than Tevez. On a patrimonial level, it's much better to have Balotelli.

"If we had sold Pato in January 2012, then Tevez would have joined Milan and then perhaps we would have won the Scudetto. Pato left Milan this year and then Balotelli joined us. In hindsight it was the right thing to do. Compared to when we sold Shevchenko and Kaka, we have now reduced our wages to a point where we won't lose as much money as before."

In relation to Financial Fair Play rulings coming into force next season, the announcement puts the club in a much stronger position to compete with Europe's elite clubs than they were a few years ago.

"In terms of FFP, we now have a positive balance sheet because we can deduct the costs from the youth sector and stadium. We own all our players except Bojan and [Cristian] Zapata. And we own half of [Kevin] Constant."

The wages are still too high imo, but im extremely proud of how we managed our affairs. It was really hard letting go of Thiago Silva & Zlatan but it was for the best.

Good news , i suppose. All i hope is we don't see our best players leave the club for money issues ever again . It's another thing not to expect big signings and another one to lose your best players. Most would choose the first in an instant , though we've been through both at the same time and more than once in recent years.

I am gratefull for once , since the management has a project and they're making plans for the best of the club. It's been long enough, i must say. Obviously there's a long way to go yet , but it has been a good start so far.

Positive moves, though there is still much work to do in reducing our wage bill. A lot of this has to do with the absolute squad of the size however, the reduction of which is a priority in the summer window. Once the squad returns to a more manageable size of around 25 then the pressure of our wage bill will be eased significantly.