Back in February, AC Milan announced plans to build a new 48,000-seat stadium in the Portello area of Milan. The plans included a sweeping re-development concept for the urban Portello neighborhood, including a new hotel, a number of restaurants, a sports college, and more. Now, plans for the new AC Milan stadium have officially been approved, which means that AC Milan's days at San Siro are numbered.
A Storied Venue
It's not surprising that the Red and Blacks are moving forward with plans for a new stadium. Football club officials have been talking about relocating since late 2005, and it's not difficult to see why. While AC Milan's history has been inextricably tied to San Siro for the better part of a century now, they do share the venue with Inter Milan-a complicated arrangement that has always made it difficult for either team to feel completely "at home" in the soccer stadium.
It is somewhat interesting that AC Milan should be the club to leave San Siro, since they have actually been at the stadium for considerably longer than Internazionale. Indeed, it was the Red and Blacks that first took up residence at the venue back in 1926, with Inter not moving in until 1947.
In the nearly seven decades that have passed since Inter's arrival, the two Milan soccer clubs have shared the stadium, always trading off home game weeks with one another during the Serie A season. In addition, the football stadium has been used for numerous Italian national team fixtures, Champions League finals, rock concerts, and other high-profile events. Bottom line, there's a lot of history at San Siro.
Finding a New Home
Still, despite all of the good times that AC Milan have had at San Siro, it's clearly time for them to move on. They need a new home to call their own, and since they share San Siro with Inter Milan-and actually sold the ground to the city back in the day-the decision to build a completely new stadium seems like the right choice at this particular point in time.
The location of the new 48,000 capacity stadium will be the old trade fairgrounds at the center of Portello. From the sounds of it, Milan's plans for a broader urban re-development are also still in place. Barbara Berlusconi, the vice president of the football club and the daughter of president Silvio Berlusconi, wrote on the AC Milan website that the mission here isn't just to build a new stadium, but also "to promote the development of the area that will host it, to make it safer and a symbol of the city."
Berlusconi also noted that fans and players alike will be able to feel a very palpable difference in atmosphere at the new stadium, when compared to San Siro. Where AC Milan's current stadium only feels like "home" for the 90 minutes of match play, before reverting back to a city-owned facility, the new, as-yet-unnamed football stadium will always feel like home.
"It will completely change the mentality of those who have gone to the stadium, proposing services and moments of entertainment not only for the 90 minutes of the game."
Inter Milan will also benefit from the news, as they will be able to truly make San Siro their home venue. Granted, the stadium will still belong to the Milan municipality, but Internazionale will likely be permitted to conduct a few renovation and re-development projects anyway.
A more personal "home" atmosphere could be precisely the thing that Internazionale and AC Milan need to turn things around. Both football clubs have suffered in recent years, finishing in eighth and 10th place respectively in the 2014 2015 Serie A.
What do you think of AC Milan's plans to break ground on a new stadium? Will you be happy to see the soccer squad play in a new venue, or will you miss San Siro? Either way, the Red and Blacks will have a few seasons left at San Siro before they move, and you can root for good things to come this year, by picking up the new AC Milan jersey 2015 2016 at Soccer Box! Follow us on social media for further developments on Milan's new soccer stadium. You can find us on several social networks including Facebook, Tumblr, and LinkedIn.
