Lille: 'Elliott want to sell Milan'

By Football Italia staff

Lille President Gerard Lopez claims Elliott Management intend to grow his club, whereas they “funded Milan to be bought” at a profit.

The US hedge fund is in control of Milan only because previous owner Yonghong Li defaulted on repayments on a €300m high-interest loan he had used to purchase the club from Silvio Berlusconi.

Elliott expanded their football investments by helping Lopez to fund Ligue 1 side Lille with another large loan of €140m.

However, the two approaches may well be different.

“[Elliott] funded AC Milan to be bought [by another party at a later stage],” Lopez told the Financial Times newspaper.

“They didn’t fund this club to be bought. They funded this club to start a process of investing in players, creating value, selling some of the players, keeping others to grow the club.”

Lopez is meant to repay the €140m loan, with interest rate “in the low double digits” by August 2021, but assures unlike Yonghong Li with Milan, he is liable for the loan and therefore Lille are not in danger of being repossessed.

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