Over the past couple of days reports from Italy have suggested that Ivan Gazidis is set to be appointed managing director of AC Milan.

The Italian giants are enduring something of a financial crisis, excluded from next season’s Europa League having fallen foul of Financial Fair Play rules, and the Chinese owner has lost control of the club to a US based hedge fund called Elliot Management.

Clearly a restructuring is on the cards, and it’s been mooted that Gazidis, who has been at Arsenal since 2009 in the role of chief executive, is on the list of candidates to restore the club to its former glory.

However, Arseblog News has been told by an Arsenal spokesperson that they have no knowledge of any potential deal. *

It would be a big shock if the 53 year old were to jump ship at this point. Gazidis has been front and centre of the rebuilding project that has gone on over the last 12 months, and has been responsible for a raft of appointments such as Darren Burgess as Head of High Performance, Sven Mislintat as Head of Recruitment, and Raul Sanllehi has Definitely Not Director of Football.

He also eventually championed the new head coach Unai Emery despite coming very close to handing the job of replacing Arsene Wenger to former captain Mikel Arteta.

With optimism high and fan sentiment as warm as it has been for many years, it would be an odd time for him to depart, unless he felt like he could leave on a high after putting in place new structures.

That would potentially leave Josh Kroenke to fill that gap, but while football can always take you by surprise, we’d be quite taken aback if this went down. Given his recent proclivity for media appearances, maybe we’ll find out from the man himself sooner rather than later.

* Post edited at 20.43 to provide clarity