Giorgio Furlani spoke to ESPN about the effect of Christian Pulisic, which is already being felt.
Milan signed Pulisic from Chelsea and the American has already made a positive impact in the little playing time he’s had: providing 3 assists in the friendly matches against Lumezzane (7-0 win) and against Real Madrid (3-2 defeat).
The Diavolo are currently in the United States for a tour and CEO Giorgio Furlani, who has taken center stage after the sacking of Maldini and Massara, was on the ESPN studios and discuss the impact of Pulisic with Sebastian Salazar.
You guys have obviously taken interest in some American players: Christian Pulisic. What could be the off-field part of that decision? Because obviously on-field Pioli likes him or he doesn’t and he’s going to have him or he’s not going to have him, but from your other considerations – what are you looking at?
“So look, I would say +90% is the on-field part and what I mean by that is that we signed Christian because we think he’s a great player and he brings a lot and the Coach is happy, the staff is happy, and he’s been with us not even a couple of weeks at this point, and his teammates are really happy. So that’s number 1, 2, 3 priority. I’d say Milan is a global brand in football, in sports, and we like to sign players who are consistent and who have a global appeal. So that part comes in as well but first and foremost it’s about how good of a player he is.”
I saw a Tweet, I think, a week after he signed that kind of described the immediate impact commercially of Pulisic; that’s no surprise to us in the United States. Can you describe what you guys saw internally when you signed Christian?
“Soon after we signed him we saw a big uptick in terms of interest in the US, so our e-commerce became very US-focused. I think of the Milan shirts we sold in the US in the week after he signed: +90% were #11 Pulisic. And we definitely saw that spike and hopefully it will continue, I’m sure it will.”
That interest carries with the other side of fandom, which is desperation if the player is not playing. We saw it at Chelsea and the club kind of bore a lot of the brunt of the anger of American fans. Is that at all a concern for you guys?
“Not really, he is going to play with us. I think he got a bit unlucky at Chelsea, but he’s a great player. So he is going to play and we really think he’s going to do well and it’s really exciting.”
