2023-06-12 14:09:03
BarcelonaSilvio Berlusconi and Bernard Tapie, the former at Milan and the latter at Olympique de Marseille, were the pioneers in the 1980s in a corrupt way (the Italian was part of the Moggigate) and populist to govern in the world of football that, subsequently, arrived in Spain with Lendoiro, Del Nido, Lopera, Jesús Gil and company. Along with his television empire, Milan helped Berlusconi gain popularity and respect in Italian society. Many wondered: if he had managed to turn a declining Milan into European Cup champions, why couldn’t he do the same with Italy?
“Milan’s Italian and world successes have paved the way for another triumph: the electoral one,” said the journalist Alberto Costa on April 19, 1994 in The Corriere della Sera after Berlusconi won the general election with a political party, Forza Italia, which had been created only a year earlier. By then it had been eight years since the Cavaliere had bought Milan, and in that time he had won two European Cups and was on the verge of another. He would raise it that May 18 in Athens against Johan Cruyff’s Barça, to which the team Red-black won 4-0. Until Berlusconi sold Milan in 2017, he still had time to win two ears more and add a total of five.
But not only the titles gave Berlusconi wings and aura of success thanks to Milan. So did the signings: he was very aware of it. In the summer of 2010, Milan bought Ibrahimovic and Robinho in just 48 hours. Journalist Beppe Severgnini explains in his book The belly of the Italians that the double operation had a political motive: Berlusconi’s trusted pollster, Luigi Crespi, had told him that he was in danger of losing between 20% and 25% of the votes from Milan fans (which amounted to two percentage points) due to poor team results.
Another example of the influence that football had on Italian politics had occurred the previous summer, when Kaká signed for Real Madrid from Milan. The incorporation of the Brazilian had been closed for some time, but Berlusconi agreed with the white team not to make it official until after the administrative elections of the weekend of June 7, 2009 because the departure of the footballer who was Ball ‘Or in 2007 did not make him lose votes. In fact, Milan’s most radical supporters had warned that they would only vote for the candidate of the People of Freedom (PdL), Berlusconi’s party at the time, if Kaká stayed. The signing became official a day later, on June 8.
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