San Siro, 'after nine years the same project as in 2017'. For the prosecutors everything is decided by the clubs
For the investigators, it was a real estate project concerning an entire neighbourhood
by Sara Monaci
The San Siro project has never changed: according to the thesis of the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office and investigators from the Milan Gdf's Pef unit, what was proposed by Inter and Milan in 2017 would have remained more or less the same. Proof, say the investigators, that it would have been the teams to direct and 'pilot' negotiations and public notice. The investigation hypothesises the crimes of bid-rigging and disclosure of official secrets.
The facility proposed by the teams 'appears, even at first glance, very similar to the current one', after nine years of negotiations between the club and the municipality. This is because it would not be a 'redevelopment' of the Meazza - as the first municipal documents indicated, which in 2019 had foreseen the possibility of selling the structure - but a 'real estate project' that concerned 'an entire neighbourhood' of Milan. This was written by the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office in the documents of the investigation into the sale of the Meazza.
The documents that would prove that the current project is almost identical to the one of 2017, after 9 years of negotiations, are those prepared by the two clubs, which on 23 October 2017 Ada Lucia De Cesaris, Inter's lawyer (and former councillor of Milan), exchanges with an employee of the team. The subject of the communication is 'Document for meeting with the municipality' in view of a scheduled appointment with the directors of Palazzo Marino for the following day, 24 October 2017. The sports clubs had already 'prepared' at that stage 'a project for the future use of the spaces included in the entire Great San Siro Urban Function'. The section of the document called 'services in support of the stadium' 'envisages the creation of Hospitality Areas, Museum, Inter Megastore, Sponsor Showroom, walkways and other spaces consisting of hotels, green areas, and car parks over the entire area'.
It was already clear, therefore, what the teams' intentions had been since the end of 2017: that is, 'the demolition of the old stadium' in order to build the new facility with 'adjacent commercial and museum areas'.
In 2017, former Rup Giancarlo Tancredi and De Cesaris had contacts to explore the two procedures for the disposal and development of the area: either the stadium law (passed that year and then amended in 2021) or project finance.
