MILAN: Footballers should respect the money they make and their employers, Serie A Chief Executive Luigi De Siervo said on Wednesday in response to AC Milan midfielder Adrien Rabiot’s concerns over his club’s planned league match in Australia.
Italy’s Serie A have turned the unavailability of the San Siro in February due to the Winter Olympics into an opportunity for Italian football to increase international visibility, and Milan’s fixture with Como will be played in Perth.
Rabiot, currently on international duty with France, called the decision crazy when he spoke to French newspaper Le Figaro on Tuesday.
“I was surprised when I learned that AC Milan will be playing a Serie A match against Como ... in Australia,” Rabiot said.
“It’s completely crazy. But these are financial agreements to give visibility to the league, things that are beyond us.
“There’s a lot of talk about schedules and player health, but this all seems truly absurd. It’s crazy to travel so many miles for a match between two Italian teams in Australia. We have to adapt, as always.”
De Siervo, attending a Serie A assembly meeting in Rome, was asked about Rabiot’s remarks that these decisions are taken without the input of players.
“He’s right, but Rabiot forgets, like all footballers who earn millions of euros, that they are paid to carry out an activity, to play football,” De Siervo told reporters.
“He should have respect for the money he earns, complying with the wishes of his employer, Milan, who accepted and pushed for this match to be played abroad.”
UEFA, while opposed to domestic league matches being played abroad, reluctantly approved the fixture on Monday (along with a LaLiga game in Miami), saying that FIFA’s regulatory framework, still under review, lacks sufficient clarity and detail.
De Siervo, however, believes football needs to follow the example of other sports if the game is to continue to grow.
“Last year’s Tour de France started from Florence, the Giro d’Italia often begins abroad. This is done to strengthen the product, not weaken it,” he said of the cycling events.
“The NFL and NBA have been playing away from the US for years, with the concept of being a global product.
“UEFA said it was against it, but accepted the exceptional nature of this event. We believe, however, that this can be a model that the world of football, with precise rules, must follow if it is not to lose out to other sports.”
Serie A chief dismisses Rabiot concerns over Milan’s Australia fixture
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Serie A chief dismisses Rabiot concerns over Milan’s Australia fixture
- Italy’s Serie A have turned the unavailability of the San Siro in February due to the Winter Olympics into an opportunity for Italian football to increase international visibility
- Rabiot said: “It’s completely crazy”
Postecoglou admits taking Nottingham Forest post a ‘bad decision’
- Postecoglou, 60, was appointed as Nuno Espirito Santo’s successor in September
- “There’s no point me blaming it on ‘I didn’t get time’ or anything,” said Postecoglou
LONDON: Ange Postecoglou has said he has only himself to blame for an extraordinarily brief reign as Nottingham Forest manager, with the Australian accepting he made “a bad decision” taking on the job with the Premier League strugglers.
Postecoglou, 60, was appointed as Nuno Espirito Santo’s successor in September.
But infamously impatient Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis sacked Postecoglou just 39 days later, after the experienced manager lost six of his eight games in charge.
Postecoglou, reflecting on his time at Forest for the Overlap podcast, said an over-eagerness to get back into management after his departure from Tottenham Hotspur three months earlier, had been the root cause of his troubles at the City Ground.
“There’s no point me blaming it on ‘I didn’t get time’ or anything,” said Postecoglou. “I should never have gone in there. That was on me. That was a bad decision by me to go in there. I’ve got to take ownership of that.
“It was too soon after Tottenham. I was taking over at a time where they were kind of used to doing things a certain way and I’m obviously going to do things differently. I’ve got to cop that, that was my mistake. It’s no-one else’s fault.”
Postecoglou remains without a club but he has ruled out returning to Celtic, where he enjoyed a successful two-year stint from 2021-23, with the 73-year-old Martin O’Neill currently in caretaker charge of the Scottish champions until the end of the season.
“I loved Celtic, it’s a wonderful football club,” said Postecoglou, who left the Glasgow giants to join Spurs. “If I was younger, I probably would have stayed there longer. I probably would have stayed there three, four years.
“I think I could have made progress with them in Europe but at the time, it had taken me a long time to get to this sort of space, and the opportunity to join Tottenham was too good.
“In terms of going back, I don’t go back. I just don’t think that’s kind of been my career.
“Whatever the next step is, it’ll be something new, somewhere I can make an impact in, somewhere I can win things, but it doesn’t diminish the affection I have for Celtic.”
