Sports Celebrity: AC Milan Football Club

Associazione Calcio Milan, commonly referred to as A.C. Milan or simply Milan, is a professional Italian football club based in Milan, Lombardy. It was founded in 1899 by English lace-maker Herbert Kilpin and businessman Alfred Edwards among others. The club has spent most of its history in Serie A, the top-flight of Italian football, having played only two seasons in Serie B in the early 1980s. Milan has won 18 officially recognized UEFA and FIFA international titles, and remains tied with Boca Juniors as having won the most in the world.

Milan has won four world titles, more than any other club in the world, having won the Intercontinental Cup three times and the FIFA Club World Cup once. Milan has won the European Cup/Champions League on seven occasions; only Real Madrid has exceeded this total. The club has also won the UEFA Super Cup a record five times and the Cup Winners' Cup twice. Domestically, Milan has won 17 league titles, making the club the third most successful in Serie A behind local rivals Internazionale (18 titles) and record-holder Juventus (27 titles). The club has also won the Coppa Italia five times, in addition to five Supercoppa Italiana triumphs.

The Europa League remains the only major competition for which the team are eligible to compete that they have never won: in this competition they have lost two semifinals, in 1972 and in 2002. Milan was a founding member of the G-14 group and the European Club Association that was formed following the first organization's dissolution. Milan's home games are played at San Siro, also known as the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza. The stadium, which is shared with Inter, is the largest in Italian football, with a total capacity of 80,074. The owner of the club is Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi while the vice-president is Adriano Galliani. Milan is one of the wealthiest clubs in Italian and world football.

The club was founded as a cricket club in 1899 by British expatriates Alfred Edwards and Herbert Kilpin, who came from the British city of Nottingham. In honor of its origins, the club has retained the English spelling of its city's name, instead of changing it to the Italian Milano, although it was forced to do so during the fascist regime. Milan won its first Italian championship in 1901 and a further two in succession in 1906 and 1907. In 1908, the club experienced a split caused by internal disagreements over the signing of foreign players, which led to the forming of another Milan-based team, Internazionale. Following these events, Milan did not manage to win a single domestic title until 1950–51.

In 1963, the club ensured its first continental title by beating Benfica in the final of the European Cup. This success was repeated in 1969, and followed by an Intercontinental Cup title the same year. After the retirement of Gianni Rivera, Milan went into a period of decline, during which the club was involved in the 1980 Totonero scandal and relegated to Serie B as punishment, for the first time in its history. The scandal was centered around a betting syndicate paying players and officials to fix the outcome of matches.

Milan quickly returned to Serie A but was relegated to Serie B one year later as the team ended its 1981–82 campaign in third last place. In 1986, entrepreneur Silvio Berlusconi acquired the club and immediately invested a lot of money in the team, appointing rising coach Arrigo Sacchi at the helm of the Rossoneri and signing a Dutch trio of Ruud Gullit, Marco van Basten and Frank Rijkaard. This was the beginning of the most successful time in the club's history, as Milan won seven domestic titles, one Coppa Italia, five Supercoppa Italiana, five Champions League trophies, five UEFA Super Cups, two Intercontinental Cups and one Fifa Club World Cup.

AC Milan Football Club Players

More recently, the club was involved in the 2006 Serie A scandal where five teams were accused of fixing matches by selecting favorable referees. A police inquiry excluded any involvement of Milan managers,[citation needed] but FIGC unilaterally decided that it had sufficient evidence to charge Milan vice-president, Adriano Galliani. As a result, Milan was initially punished with a 15 point deduction and consequently did not qualify for the Champions League. An appeal saw that penalty reduced to eight points, which allowed the club to retain its 2006–07 Champions League participation. Milan subsequently won the competition, lifting the European Cup for the seventh time.

Throughout the entire history of the club, it has been represented by the colors red and black. The colors were chosen to represent the players' fiery ardor (red) and the opponents' fear to challenge the team (black). Due to Milan's striped red and black shirts, the club has gained the nickname rossoneri. White shorts and black socks are worn as part of the home strip. Milan's away strip has always been completely white. It is considered by both the fans and the club to be a lucky strip in Champions League finals, due to the fact that Milan has won six finals out of eight in an all white strip (losing only to Ajax in 1995 and Liverpool in 2005), while winning only one out of three in the home strip.

The third strip changes yearly and is black with red trim for the current season, but it is rarely used. For many years, Milan's badge was simply the Flag of Milan, which was originally the flag of Saint Ambrose. Another nickname derived from the club's colors is the Devil. An image of a red devil was used as Milan's logo at one point with a Golden Star for Sport Excellence located next to it. The star was awarded to the club when it won 10 league titles. Currently, the badge represents the club colors and the flag of the Comune di Milano, with the acronym ACM at the top and the foundation year (1899) at the bottom. Milan is one of the most supported football clubs in Italy, according to research conducted by Italian newspaper La Repubblica. Historically, Milan was supported by the city's working-class and trade unionists, a section of whom were migrants from Southern Italy.

On the other hand, crosstown rivals Internazionale were mainly supported by the more prosperous and typically Milanese middle-class. One of the oldest ultras groups in all of Italian football, Fossa dei Leoni, originated in Milan. Currently, the main ultras group within the support base is Brigate Rossonere. Politically, Milan ultras have never had any particular preference, but the media traditionally associated them with the left-wing, until recently, when Berlusconi's presidency somewhat altered that view. Genoa fans consider Milan a hated rival after Genoa fan, Vincenzo Spagnolo was tragically stabbed to death by a Milan supporter in January 1995.

However, Milan's main rivalry is with neighbor club, Internazionale; both clubs meet in the widely anticipated Derby della Madonnina twice every Serie A season. The name of the derby refers to the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose statue atop the Milan Cathedral is one of the city's main attractions. The match usually creates a lively atmosphere, with numerous (often humorous or offensive) banners unfolded before the start of the game. Flares are commonly present and contribute to the spectacle but they have occasionally led to problems, including the abandonment of the second leg of the 2004–05 Champions League quarterfinal match between Milan and Inter on 12 April 2005, after a flare thrown from the crowd by an Inter supporter struck Milan keeper Dida on the shoulder.

The team's current stadium is the 80,018 seat San Siro, officially known as Stadio Giuseppe Meazza after the former player who represented both Milan and Internazionale. The name San Siro is taken from the district where it's located. San Siro has been the home of Milan since 1926, when it was privately built by the club. The stadium has been shared with Internazionale since 1946, when the other major Milanese club was accepted as joint tenant. The stadium is renowned for its fantastic atmosphere due to the closeness of the stands to the pitch. The frequent use of flares by supporters contributes to the atmosphere but the practice has occasionally caused problems.

On 19 December 2005, Milan vice-president and executive director Adriano Galliani announced that the club is seriously working towards a relocation. He said that Milan's new stadium will be largely based on the Veltins-Arena and will follow the standards of football stadiums in the United States, Germany and Spain. It will likely be a stadium for football purposes only (with no athletics track). The new stadium is supposed to be named after a sponsor. It remains to be seen if this plan will proceed or if this is just a ploy to force the owners (Comune di Milano) to sell the stadium to Milan for a nominal fee so as to proceed with extensive renovations. The possibility of Internazionale vacating San Siro may affect proceedings.