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Extended Clip - Silvio Berlusconi Dies At 86: Remembering The Legendary AC Milan ‘Presidente’
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After passing away at the age of 86 on Monday the 12th of June 2023, Nima Tavallaey and Carlo Garganese remember, analyze and contextualize historically the life of legendary former AC Milan president Silvio Berlusconi.
This is an extended clip from this weeks free Monday episode of The Italian Football Podcast which is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google podcasts.
To listen to ALL complete episodes of The Italian Football Podcast, go to Patreon.com/TIFP and become a Patron for only $2.99 USD per month (excluding VAT).
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to the Italian football podcast. Let's move on in some sad news.
Berlusconi's Passing and Legacy
00:00:09
Speaker
So just before we started recording today, the news was confirmed that Silvio Berlusconi has died aged 86 in Milan. He had recently spent six weeks
00:00:22
Speaker
in hospital at the San Rafael hospital, undergoing treatment for a lung infection which was linked to him being, he's just recently he's been suffering with leukaemia and he was readmitted into hospital very recently in the last week I think or so and yeah unfortunately yeah sadly he has passed away aged 86 so
Berlusconi's Impact on AC Milan
00:00:52
Speaker
I mean, we're talking about an absolute huge figure, not just in Italian football and in the football history of Milan, but in the history of the country of Italy in the last decades. If we talk about, from a football point of view, he was the owner of Milan from 1986.
00:01:14
Speaker
to 2017 and you cannot underestimate the impact that he had on Milan. At the time of leaving Milan, selling Milan in 2017, he was the most successful president in the history of football anywhere in the world. 28 trophies.
00:01:34
Speaker
I don't know, I've seen some say 29. I counted 28, but I don't know if they're counting a little small trophy somewhere, but 28, 29. He was the most successful president in football history at the time. I'm not sure if Florentino Perez has overtaken him now. I think Florentino has overtaken him. Yeah, he might have done since then, but at the time of leaving Milan in 2017, he was the most successful and what he did at Milan was
Financial Evolution and Controversies
00:01:58
Speaker
was unbelievable when he bought a club that was on the verge of bankruptcy. It's a club that had been, and he bought them in 1986, as I said, but they'd been in Serie B. They'd twice been relegated into Serie B earlier on in the 80s, one for the match, the Totonero match fixing scandal. But then the second time actually was on merit, was actually for the field of play through not being a very good football team.
00:02:21
Speaker
And so he turned them into the best team in Italy within a couple of years. They won the 1988 and he made them the best team in Europe in 1989 when they won the first European Cup of his tenure and he built.
00:02:35
Speaker
in my opinion and in many people's opinion the best club football team that we've ever seen in football history and his team that he had under Saki, Erico Saki, the three Dutchmen, Van Basten, Rykard and Hullet and then you know that that amazing all Italian defence, Maldini, Berezi, Tassotti, Costa Gertz, I mean for me that's the best club team we've ever seen and they won two European Cups in a row in 89 and 90 and it took
00:03:01
Speaker
It took her almost three decades, I think it's former Madrid, for anyone else to win two in a row. And under Belisconi, you know, they reached five finals in seven years during that spell. And in total, during his time in Milan, eight Champions League finals at Milan and winning five of them. And, you know, so I mean, the success that he brought to Milan was absolutely unbelievable, wasn't it?
00:03:27
Speaker
Well, together on the football pitch, what he and Adriano Galliani and Braida did was truly, truly remarkable. We've got to keep it honest here and intellectually honest here, too. Before there were any... He was one of the first to...
00:03:46
Speaker
really set in motion the wheels of what became the modern football, moneyball game of financial doping when there wasn't such a thing, when it wasn't, when it was okay, completely legal. There were no rules. There were no rules whatsoever. He was one of the first to set it in motion and because of the fact that he used that success to launch his political career,
00:04:13
Speaker
becoming the prime minister of Italy for many, many years, becoming one of the longest serving prime ministers in Italian history. Many other people opened their eyes to understanding what sportswashing really was, and in football at least.
Political Career and Media Influence
00:04:26
Speaker
I mean, of course, it existed before. But at this level, he was one of the instigators of that, and we should not be dishonest about that.
00:04:34
Speaker
No, and we shouldn't be dishonest about, you know, obviously, you don't want to speak ill of the dead and not when they don't care if you don't want to speak in general, you don't want to speak ill of the dead in general. But you know, he was mired in a lot of scandals, political scandals, sex scandals, underage underage, boom, boom,
00:04:52
Speaker
parties, very shady business, the secret societies, you name it. His connections to the Sicilian Cosa Nostra Mafia, just Google Vittorio Mangano, just Google Marcello de Lutri, who these people were.
00:05:08
Speaker
Vitorio Mangano was hired. This was officially hired as a gardener and a stableman. Yes, that's right. But he didn't do much gardening there.
00:05:23
Speaker
Maybe certain types of gardening. Depending on how deep you want to dig, let's say. How far down the rabbit hole you want to go. But seriously, if you look into the people that
00:05:39
Speaker
that he had connections with. If you look at him being convicted, how he used the Italian legislature and the government to harm the government by making Italian law so much more bizarre that we see the results of it now with statute of limitations and using it for his own interests.
00:06:01
Speaker
um is is you know from a political point of view and i don't even talk about the sex scandals because i know people love that stuff but the other stuff i think that that he did was was far more was far more bad if i'm perfectly honest the fact that he he made it okay to use the state to serve himself
00:06:21
Speaker
and enrich himself privately. He was, you know, he was one of the first in the West to do that, so openly, emblatantly, brazenly and unashamedly, unashamed, like just in your face. But if we, you know, that's who he is. His influence on Italian society for good and for bad, you know, television, for example, I mean, he was so far ahead of everyone in terms of
00:06:45
Speaker
you know modern tv and whether you like it or not the way that he used sex to sell tv i mean it's all you still see it today on italian tv italian football tv we still see it you know you see um you know you have a talk show to talk about football and you generally have a have a have a very attractive young model or showgirl or whatever you call her that just basically sits there and looks nice
00:07:12
Speaker
He was a very big influence on that side of things. He understood how to be successful and he was incredibly successful. We want to look at the football side of things. Yes, you're
Football Financing: Past vs Present
00:07:27
Speaker
absolutely right. He spent heavily
00:07:28
Speaker
I don't think it's comparable to say the level of spending that we see today in the Premier League because back then there weren't rules in terms of financial fair play rules but you know back then there were rules like there was
00:07:43
Speaker
three EU players, for example. You could only have three foreigners. Well, actually at the start it was two. In the 1980s, it was two. Then they increased it to three in the late 80s. That means that you couldn't go out and just buy every single, yeah, hoard and have all the best players in the world. It was impossible. You could only have the three best foreigners. Okay, you could still go out and buy
00:08:05
Speaker
the best Italian players, but all the big Italian clubs had riches back then. Yes, Bellascone was the richest of them all, but they were all super rich. We saw the teams like Udenezer, Bayern, Zico, Napoli, Bayern, Maradona.
00:08:22
Speaker
Milan were the best team in the best league that there's ever been. It was still very impressive what he's done and a lot more impressive than... I don't think it's comparable to what football has become now with the Premier League. Because now there are... Look, the principle is the same, the details are different. That's fair enough, but we shouldn't be hypocritical about that.
00:08:50
Speaker
started pretty much, you know, he laid the groundwork for, he wrote the playbook for how you use football in the modern context to further a political agenda. And he was very big in the Champions League, the actual former Champions League. He understood that internationally, it meant that he was one of the first to understand that, yes, OK, winning the Serie A is great, but when you do it on an international stage, when everyone is watching from all over the world, that's when it matters.
00:09:19
Speaker
And again, yeah, that's why he became such a big influence also on Milan being the most successful Italian team in Europe, because there was that feeling, even in Italy at the time, for a long time, probably up until Bellascone, where many, many people in Italy actually would rather win Serie A, winning Sparetto than winning the Champions League or the European Cup as it was known then, because it was, you know, that was, they considered that the bigger tournament. And Bellascone kind of helped to change those attitudes.
00:09:45
Speaker
And obviously Milan's success under him in the Champions League was just unbelievable. And they had so many great teams, so many great teams. I mean, not just that Saki team, but the Coppello team that won the European Cup and reached three finals in a row.
Media Control and Political Influence
00:10:02
Speaker
the Ancelotti team, there were three finals in five years. I mean, just name some of the players they had and some of the games, the legendary games, me thrashing Real Madrid 5-0 in the 1989 European Cup semi-final at San Siro. The 4-0 over Stelboukourest in the final. The 4-0 over Cruyff's dream team in the 94 final in Athens, when everybody thought that Barcelona were going to destroy Milan in that final. Milan were decimated in defence.
00:10:28
Speaker
They had no beretie or costocurter, they come on and they destroy them, 4-0. And then all the way down to beating Man United, 3-0 in 2007. The 6-0 over Inter-Nima, which you probably will have forget. I mean, so many legendary games. I haven't forgotten that at all. I mean, we've got partly our revenge back on the Euro Darby, the Inter-1 now, because we lost a couple of Euro Darbys against his Milan. And look, Milan were unbelievable.
00:10:55
Speaker
then. There's no doubt about that. He built a structure. He understood the importance of media in sports, one of the first to do so in the world in football, in the footballing world. And that's why Milan have historically always been so good with the media and know how to get
00:11:15
Speaker
buy, quote unquote, without paying positive coverage when you take care of like every player when your when your president is the prime minister. Yes, but not just that. Even before that, this notion that understanding that if you buy a star from one country, that you have to have a relationship with the media. No, no, absolutely. I'm just saying it helps when you've got the influence of being a minister or being controlled in Italian TV.
00:11:38
Speaker
Look, he said, well, not just that, he controlled 90% of the Italian media at one point when he was in government. And also, let's remember that he used to say that when Milan wins on the weekend, parliamentary proceedings are far more easier on a Monday. This is
Controversial Persona and Legacy
00:11:55
Speaker
who he was.
00:11:56
Speaker
You know, he was he embodied that and he lived it and he didn't, you know, and that's just, you know, again, it's a complex character. And some of the quotes he's come out with over the years as well. I mean, some of the stuff he's come up with some of the videos of him. I mean, just just Google.
00:12:14
Speaker
Sylvia Belisquone quotes. I mean, there's so many. I don't know what is my favorite at all. I think Paul Mampiano de Troia is out there, that one of his last ones with Montza, the bus full of prostitutes. If they beat Juventus. They beat one of the big teams. They beat them twice this season. I'll turn up to the dressing room with a bus full of prostitutes. It's just unbelievably
00:12:41
Speaker
It's just... Yeah, in this time of extreme political correctness that we're seeing, I don't think Bellascone fits into this world very much, some of the stuff that he's come out with. I remember when he said that the Chinese used to eat babies. Do you remember that? Yeah, he had to apologize for that. He said lots of racist changes. Obama had a good tan. He said once, I remember that. I mean, he's come out with so much stuff.
00:13:05
Speaker
Yeah, but yeah, from a footballing point of view, yeah, one of the giants of football, not just Italian football, one of the giants of all football. So yeah, it will be a bit of skinny, aged 86, passed away today.