Three solutions for handling San Donato land in Milan: Youth Training Base? Commercial Development? Direct Sale?

October 3: After the Milan City Council approved the sale of San Siro and surrounding areas, the Milan club will need to deal with the land purchased in San Donato.

Milan Club hoped to build a new stadium. They were looking to buy San Siro Stadium and its surrounding areas on the one hand, and on the other hand, there was an alternative, which was to buy a piece of land in San Donato, which Milan spent 40 million euros on it. The Milan Club's plan is to go to San Donato to start a new stadium project if it is unable to stay in the San Siro area.

But this week, the Milan City Council voted to approve the sale of San Siro and surrounding areas to two clubs, Milan and Inter Milan, and the two Milan heroes joined forces to build a new stadium belonging to the two clubs, and demolished the San Siro Stadium, leaving only a small part of the stands as a museum. In this case, the Milan club needs to deal with the land purchased by San Donato.

Milan Sports reporter Marco Pasotho said, "There are currently three possible solutions: first, relocate the youth training department of the Milan Club to San Donato; second, develop a new project based on sports but more focused on commercial and recreational purposes in San Donato; third, the Milan Club sells the land." The Milan Club is having an active dialogue with the San Donato Municipal Government and will conduct assessments in the next few months and propose solutions.

Although the Milan Club has abandoned plans to build a new stadium in San Donato, the San Donato city government has not expressed its dissatisfaction with this, and the Milan Club's more likely option is to retain the right to use the land and start a new project. Milan Club Chairman Scaroni said: "We are still positive about the San Donato area. The club has invested 40 million euros here and still plans to develop sports projects here."

This means that the Milan Club does not want to sell this land, but hopes to continue to invest in and develop here. But the media also pointed out that the Milan club will face some problems. Recently, the San Donato District Court accepted a lawsuit by the local business alliance against the San Donato Municipal Government and SportLifeCity (the company responsible for leading the development of the San Donato land, with the Milan Club owning 90% stake) because the land originally planned for insufficient green space. This means that the city's approval of SportLifeCity's permit to build new stadiums and related ancillary facilities in the area in 2021 may be cancelled, and future use in the area may require the re-start of administrative approval procedures.