BERLUSCONI'S BILLIONS

How the former owner of Milan changed the face of Italian football forever

- Paddy Agnew

The death of 86-year-old Silvio Berlusconi, who died in Milan on June 12 from a leukaemia-related illness, was an epoch-marking event that profoundly shook not just Italian football fans but the entire country.

The media tycoon and former Prime Minister was, of course, best known to football fans all around the world as the owner of and inspiration behind the brilliant Milan side of the late 1980s/ early ’90s. For the last 30 years since his entry into politics in 1994, Berlusconi inevitably devoted less time to football, concentrating rather on his often bitterly controversial political career.

Before that, however, he had masterminded a truly golden era for Milan which, in just six years, saw the great club win three European Cups/ Champions Leagues (1989, 1990, 1994), two Intercontinental Cups (1989, 1990) and four Serie A titles (1988, 1992, 1993, 1994) in a magical moment when many considered Milan to be the strongest club team in world football.

Whatever about Berlusconi’s scandal-plagued public life, many football critics would probably agree that he was an innovative and farsighted club owner and one whose dynamic inspiration and cash (of course) created one of the greatest club sides of all time. Whilst Berlusconi remained, technically, the boss at Milan for another 20 years during which the club won two more Champions League trophies (2003, 2007) and four more Serie A titles (1996, 1999, 2004, 2011), nothing remotely matched the spectacular success of his early years in charge.