Particularly
with no football of note being played this week, and the transfer market not
opening until July first, news agencies are desperate for news. Not desperate
enough to actually report and do their homework, mind you, just desperate for
clicks and views. In fact, they are so busy trying to whip people into a
frenzy, they’ve forgotten to report news they previously reported. Especially
when it comes to Milan and our financial situation. Despite the fact that it
would actually benefit the league and news agencies that report on Serie A to
get things right and not drag the league and its teams through the mire any
more, they continue to write alarming reports and omit basic facts. So here is
what the news won’t tell you.
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| That's a lot of money to pay just to be able to watch a few games |
The
television channel RAI 3’s investigative show “Report”
produced a segment on Milan and Yonghong Li that aired the other day. Football
Italia summarized and translated the major
points of the segment. The same Football Italia that last week reported
again
and again
that Yonghong Li would be late on his capital investment payment of €10m, but
barely mentioned the fact that he actually made the payment on time in one
little line within that summary and nowhere else on their site, “Today,
Yonghong Li had to provide another €10m of capital to keep Elliott at bay and
he provided the sum via Luxembourg.” Certainly, clearing the poor man’s
good name after they slandered him and relayed inaccurate reports all week last
week was not a priority for them. That would imply truthful journalism. Especially
since they continue to report that the Elliott fund would take over Milan
before October, even though Yonghong Li doesn’t
owe the fund one Euro before then. Football Italia merely
translate the news from Italian to English, that’s how they absolve themselves
of the responsibility of which news they report.
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| That's a pretty fancy team dinner for a charlatan to throw |
Back to the
RAI segment. They continue to refer, as so many people do, to the New York
Times article from November 2017 by Sui-Lee Wee, Ryan Mcmorrow, and Tariq Panja
called “China’s
Soccer Push Puts a Storied Team Under Murky Ownership.” This article
was shockingly very accepted as investigative journalism, despite the fact that
they never completed any of their investigation, never got any answers. All
they did was raise more questions, incriminating Yonghong Li by suspicion
rather than facts. One of the most damning statements was from Sui-Lee Wee in
regards to due diligence: “I ask myself who did due diligence on Mr Li’s
companies – assuming they even did!” For the answer to that, all she had to
do was check out Mattino
Cinque in February when another journalistic witch hunt regarding
Yonghong Li’s solvency was happening. Adriano Galliani reminded everyone of exactly
who did due diligence: “First of all, he presented the credentials to the
Lega Calcio and was approved. Secondly, the Elliott fund loaned Mr Li over
€300m, so they must’ve made their own evaluations. Finally, over the summer a
transfer campaign worth €200m was completed, giving all the necessary financial
guarantees and bank bonds that the Italian rules demand.” After the club
purchase last April, many of the same agencies that are now questioning who did
due diligence actually reported that Milan, the Lega Serie A, and the FIGC all
did due diligence, and traced all of the payments to the source, etc. I guess
it’s like a mass outbreak of journalistic amnesia. They even forgot their own
reports.
So all
Sui-Lee Wee needed to do was to google any news report about the sale of the
club last year to find out all of the people who did due diligence in the sale
of the club. But instead, she just asked herself. Because certainly she didn’t
do any due diligence either, digging around but never finding answers, writing
instead about a lot of other people and companies instead of Yonghong Li. In
fact the original article was posted with the wrong picture. Literally these
journalists couldn’t even tell Yonghong Li from David Han Li. But hey, when you
can create a web of guilt by word association, why tell the truth? Or even post
the actual picture of the person you are writing about?
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| Yes, this actually happened. And this is the article everyone talks about now about Yonghong Li, too. |
Going
back to the RAI
3 people, though. Not only did they take the question of Milan’s owner
to heart, they are going back to questioning where the money came from. Even
though that was also resolved and widely reported last year with the due
diligence. “Nobody knows who the real owner of Milan is. It’s
a fact that the Milanese authorities have opened an investigation after
receiving a tip-off from the Banca d’Italia to find out where this money has
come from.” Yes, an investigation of where, not who. No
criminal charges being made, no money laundering accusations, no one accusing Berlusconi
of selling the club but not selling it, etc. But did that stop them? No!
Suddenly, that Berlusconi & Galliani, having been in politics and football
for over 30 years now, actually knowing people who still have ties to Milan is shocking.
Berlusconi said after losing a lot of votes that he would like to buy Milan
back, because he got more votes when he owned the club. Scandalous! He
never said anything tying his ownership to elections before… oh, wait, he did. All
the time. Even his son has already come out and called the accusations “a
joke.” There are “anomalies” in the fact that during the sale,
Berlusconi mentioned that some people would likely continue on the board to
give Milan continuity. In fact, RAI 3 probably reported that back then, too.
But now it’s shocking. Scandalous. And an anomaly. And
perhaps a serious case of journalistic amnesia.
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| No way the guy in the middle drops €200m+ in one transfer window. No way. |
Look, I have no idea what’s going on with Yonghong
Li. I had more questions before the sale of the club than these people have
after things haven’t gone as planned. If you don’t believe me, read “Takeover
Blunders” from December of 2016, which itemizes some of the glaring
errors during the process of selling the club. Or read “It
Hurts Less When You See It Coming” from March of last year. Here’s an
excerpt of what I said back then, while these journalists were reporting on the
due diligence they now have forgotten:
But
the biggest question I have is who the hell is Yonghong Li? He’s lived his life
largely in the shadows, his source of income is largely unclear, and he has
failed to disclose transactions in the past and been penalized for it. He has
never been forthcoming about any of the important details of this deal, like
who his investors were and where his wealth comes from. And he has still not
even been able to close this deal. His reasons for the nearly eleven month ordeal
are ever changing, and he has lost the faith of most of the fans by not being
engaged in the club, the deal, or offering any transparency. Most telling was
his losing Paolo Maldini, who could not get behind the organizational structure
they had planned, and was refused the opportunity to meet either Han Li or
Yonghong Li or any of the other mystery investors to see what their vision was.
The most we know about Yonghong Li is that over eleven months’ time, he has
cost Milan two transfer markets, rendered us completely helpless to rebuild in
any way, and made the club the laughing stock of the whole world. Well that,
and he has shady business friends.
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| We all want to know the truth, but at least these people are doing something for Milan |
If these journalists were worth half a click, they
would have also asked those questions back then. But they didn’t. And now they are
hell bent on destroying Milan’s image and name brand instead, at a time when
Milan needs it most. In fact, it was this scaremongering style of journalism
that likely inspired UEFA’s “uncertainties,” and refusal of a settlement
agreement. Once they got on board the scare train, the press really went wild.
And everyone seems to want to discredit Yonghong Li and Milan for sport. Which
means the journalists’ incompetence and lack of integrity are eroding at the value
of our club, while they get more clicks. But if they want to demonize someone, accuse
the FIGC, the Lega Serie A, Fininvest and Berlusconi for all failing to complete
due diligence on a deal that took eleven months to finalize. Eleven months and
no one thought to ask where this man got his money? That’s on them. But don’t
expect transparency or facts from the journalists. You can’t even trust them to
remember what their own agencies reported just over a year ago. Instead, be
intelligent and go back and read what they said back then. It’s what the news
won’t tell you.
This post inspired by the music of The Sex Pistols’
“Liar”