Cardinale: Buying AC Milan the hardest thing I've done - but also the best

Gerry Cardinale says buying AC Milan was the most difficult business purchase he's made.

Cardinale, through RedBird Capital, is now is in his second season running the club.

He told Bloomberg: "Buying Milan was the hardest thing I have ever faced, but also the best.

"But the irony is that it was all imposed by myself. I had an entrepreneurial need that I had to satisfy, and it was just the kind of thing that we do more and more at RedBird. The way that institutionalized finance on Wall Street has evolved, it doesn't get compensated for that amount of activity, of rolling up your sleeves, of working hard and everything else.

"And I say compensated not only in terms of money, but also in terms of overall effort. I like to play the part of the shadow entrepreneur and I like to solve problems with capital. And it happens that in the career of people there is a bit of luck.

"I happened to find a turning point in sport that I could never have predicted in 2000/2001. If we look back at the last 20 years, we realize that it was truly great luck. I really found an air gap where I took off. Now the challenge is to navigate this situation, because now everyone has discovered sport.

"Billy Beane (RedBird director) has been around AC Milan for several years, and we've kind of observed him. But again, you think you know a lot about sports, but then you realize you don't actually, because of all the feedback that you get. Every time I brought up the topic of AC Milan internally or here in the United States, everyone said, 'You're crazy.' 'Don't ever think about investing in Italy.'

"But the answer to your question is that, in the end, there we found ourselves going around the circle. Elliott was the owner of Milan. Milan was in debt,