Gerry Cardinale is planning to bring in a new director of football at Milan, part of a wider shift that has seen the RedBird founder take direct, hands-on control of the club, according to La Gazzetta dello Sport.
The backdrop is Cardinale's rethink of how he runs Milan after four years of managing from a distance. Gazzetta traces that period from the 2021-22 Scudetto to missing out on the Champions League under Massimiliano Allegri, and the American appears to have concluded that the remote model did not work.
The change is already visible day to day. Cardinale ran the summer's most important transfer negotiations himself, using his relationships with the owners of other clubs, and Gazzetta reports he now lives alongside the club: he watched the openers against Torino and Venezia, and will be at the Juventus Stadium for the third match of the season.
He has also embedded himself at Milanello and Casa Milan, sitting in on meetings and reshaping decision-making so that calls now come from consultations with his staff and Ruben Amorim. On Saturday he attended Amorim's press conference from the back of the room, something he had never done before and, as Gazzetta notes, something owners simply do not do.
The relationship with Amorim is the point around which all of this turns, described as probably the strongest bond built at Milan in recent months. Cardinale has made clear he wanted to choose the coach personally, deliberately breaking with the Italian template he dislikes, in which owners appoint a sporting director who picks the coach, and the coach carries the blame when results go wrong.
That is where the new hire fits. Gazzetta reports a new director of football could arrive in the coming months, with Eintracht Frankfurt's Markus Krösche linked again, though no figure or timeline is attached to any candidate.
What Gazzetta stresses is the shape of the job rather than the name. Cardinale will not hand over the keys as he did previously with CEO Giorgio Furlani. From 2026 he intends to be permanently present, dictating the direction, using his contacts to smooth negotiations, and keeping the final say, while the new director adapts to the model rather than reshaping it. Decisions stay shared, and the coach keeps a strong voice.
Whether the structure delivers is the open question, and by Gazzetta's own admission no one yet knows. What is clear is that Cardinale intends to build around himself and Amorim, with any director of football slotting into a system already in place. The next move is his to make.