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Another deal that has been widely known about for a while has been made official today, as Frederic “Ricky” Massara was named Sporting Director at AC Milan. He joins a management team of Paolo Madini as Technical Director, Zvonimir Boban as Chief Football Officer, and Ivan Gazidis as CEO of the club.
Comunicato Ufficiale: Frederic Massara ➡ https://t.co/EpqkjRqoaG
— AC Milan (@acmilan) June 21, 2019
Official Statement: Frederic Massara ➡ https://t.co/CJBleEcjBo pic.twitter.com/8gtqlnXrYD
Per the club’s official website:
AC Milan announces the appointment of Frederic Massara as Sporting Director of the First team, effective July 1, 2019. The top executive will report directly to the Club’s Strategic Development Director of the Technical Area, Paolo Maldini.
Massara, born in Turin on November 11, 1969, after retiring from his career as football player with 221 appearances between Serie A and Serie B scoring 24 goals, initially worked as assistant coach and afterwards as executive for USC Palermo and AS Roma before obtaining his Sporting Director licence in May 2011 with full marks (110/110). He was appointed as AS Roma’s Sporting Director in 2016 before starting a new adventure from August 2017 to March 2018 in the Technical Area of Jiangsu Suning. In June 2018, he returned to AS Roma as Coordinator of the Technical Area, to then take on the role of Sporting Director again. He will now join the Rossoneri world and will oversee all technical and sporting operations.
AC Milan’s Strategic Development Director of the Technical Area, Paolo Maldini commented: “We are very happy to welcome Frederic to our working team. Thanks to his preparation, seriousness and professionalism he will be an added value to AC Milan as well as being functional to the strategies to be undertaken in our growth path.”
Massara certainly doesn’t have the resume that many other previous Sporting Directors have had before him at Milan, as Leonardo had much more experience in the role. Even Massimo Mirabelli had a more impressive resume before taking over at Casa Milan. Honestly, Massara seems like he’s a place holder until Maldini is ready to take over full-time as a Sporting Director or just a person in a role while Ivan Gazidis, Boban, and Maldini have the final say about transfers.
What do you think? Excited about the new Sporting Director? Think he’ll be a good hire or just a figurehead? Let us know in the comments!