AC Milan 2026: €133m in sales, a €24m loss, and the academy kids written into the ledger

Tommaso Pobega grew up in AC Milan's academy. This past summer, Bologna bought him outright for €4.9m. A few lines away in AC Milan's 2026 financial statements, another name sits inside a round number: Cristian Colombo, €7.6m, to Genoa after the Ligurian club exercised its buy option. Two people, two lines of money. What matters is that both were booked almost entirely as net profit, because Milan never bought them from anywhere. They were raised here, they grew up here, and now they are sold to balance a sheet that is tilting further toward loss. I read those figures late one night, after switching off a match I had been half-watching. On the nights I follow Serie A, I ask myself what binds Vietnamese fans to a league half a world away. The answer, perhaps, is that European football reaches us like light from very far away, a place where everything is measured in euros. But when you read a financial statement instead of watching a match, you notice what television never shows: behind every goal is a depreciation line, and behind every young player is a profit that can be sold. AC Milan's 2026 financial statements, reported by Goal.com citing Radio Rossonera, tell a story that transfer bulletins never finish. They record the specific numbers of the outgoing deals: Malick Thiaw to Newcastle for €34.1m excluding bonuses, Theo Hernandez to Al-Hilal for €25m, Alex Jimenez for €18.5m, Noah Okafor to Leeds for €18m, Alvaro Morata for €11m, Emerson Royal for €9m, Colombo for €7.6m, Yacine Adli to Al Shabab for €5.2m, and Pobega for €4.9m. Added together, the figure exceeds €133m. It was a summer of selling almost perfect in accounting terms. And yet the final line of the report is a loss of around €24m. To understand why €133m in proceeds comes with a loss, the figure must be placed in its proper context. Milan's turnover in fiscal year 2026 was around €464m, down about 6% year on year. This is the first notable point: turnover fell, and the stated cause is the club's absence from European cup competitions. Modern football runs on the fixture calendar — more matches, more broadcast money, more matchdays with crowds, more UEFA bonuses. When the calendar shrinks, turnover shrinks with it, and no accounting entry can hide that gap. Fiscal year 2026 also marks Milan's first return to a loss after three consecutive profitable years, from 2026 to 2026. To put it in perspective, three straight profitable years for a major Serie A club is no small achievement, especially when Europe's giants routinely report losses. So the €24m loss is not a catastrophe. It is a signal, and that signal must be read carefully. One technical but important detail: the sale of Tijjani Reijnders to Manchester City was booked in fiscal year 2026, not 2026. That means Milan's 2026 report was lifted by a major deal, while the 2026 report had no comparable one. In other words, part of this year's loss is simply a base effect — last year had a special income item, this year does not, so comparing the two years side by side makes everything look like a collapse, when in fact only the base has shifted. Another note in the report deserves a close read: the transfer figures exclude potential future bonuses, because those do not affect last season's accounts. In accounting terms this is sensible and prudent — it understates the €133m relative to the total Milan may eventually receive, while keeping this year's books from depending on uncertain sums. But it also reminds us that every transfer figure is a living number, capable of swelling or shrinking over time. When each line is added up, the picture becomes clearer. Thiaw to Newcastle is the largest deal, €34.1m excluding bonuses, and since Milan bought him for far less, this is almost certainly a significant book profit. Theo Hernandez to Al-Hilal for €25m is the most contentious case, because at the time of sale he was still regarded as one of Europe's top attacking left-backs. A peak-age elite full-back left for roughly the price of a centre-back and below his own past market peak. Alex Jimenez, €18.5m, is a young player — the buyer's identity is still inconsistent, with some sources saying Fiorentina and others Bournemouth, so this data point needs further verification. Okafor to Leeds for €18m. Adli to Al Shabab for €5.2m. Then come two deals that stand out in the opposite direction. Alvaro Morata, €11m. Emerson Royal, €9m. Both were sold just one year after Milan bought them. This is the crux: when you buy a player and sell him a single season later for less, you do not call it a bargain. You call it a recruitment loss. If Thiaw is a credit mark for the transfer department, Morata and Emerson Royal are two red lines. And they reveal something no bulletin dares name: Milan's problem this past summer was not in selling, but in the buying of previous seasons. But the most interesting part of the report lies in the academy group. Colombo, €7.6m, and Pobega, €4.9m, are both products of Milan's youth system, and both were sold through buy options. For a player developed in the academy, book value is close to zero. When you sell him for €4.9m or €7.6m, almost the entire sum is booked straight as profit. In the language of financial fair play, this is the cleanest, most efficient profit, and the easiest to defend before regulators. A big club is running the strategy of a small club: develop young players, give them enough minutes to raise their value, then sell them to generate gains that can be presented to UEFA. This is where I must pause and look at what happens behind the numbers. Transfers are a symphony written in contracts, but the rests are what remain. The rest here is a boy in his early teens, wearing red and black before he even knew he would become a professional, training daily at Milanello with the dream of playing at San Siro. Then one day he is called into a meeting, told the club needs him to leave, and he understands he has just become a line of profit. I once thought I was a storyteller. It turns out I only copy out the dreams of thousands of people. Those dreams, when sold, never appear on the summary sheet. Only the number does. One more technical point must be stressed. Under the common accounting practice of Italian clubs, turnover, or fatturato, usually excludes profit from player trading — that item is booked separately. If so, the €464m turnover and the €24m loss must be read together differently. The €24m loss is the result after accounting for €133m in player sales. That means Milan's core operating business — before selling players — lost far more than €24m. Plainly put: the sales were not a profitable operation; they were a measure to contain the loss. This is the most important insight in the entire report, and it lies not in any single figure but in how the figures stand next to one another. Looking at the broader Serie A picture, Milan's position becomes clear. The club sells its best assets to Newcastle, to Manchester City, to Al-Hilal — that is, to the Premier League and to Gulf money. They buy cheap, develop, then resell, as with Morata and Emerson Royal sold at a loss after one year. This is the model of a selling club, a transit step on the financial power ladder of European football. In that system, Italy is increasingly becoming a producer and supplier, while England and the Gulf are consumers. Milan fans in Vietnam, who stay up all night to watch the team they love, probably do not think much about this during a match. But this is the reality shaping the club's future. Another detail worth noting is the name Igli Tare. The report references the outgoing deals within this sporting director's tenure, meaning the summer's selling decisions are being viewed as part of his imprint. When a financial statement ties a figure to a specific name, we understand this is not merely about money. It is about responsibility. And responsibility in modern football is usually measured by two things: results on the pitch and results on the books. Milan last season had no European cup, turnover fell, and the club returned to a loss. Both measures stood against the decision-makers. One should also note the sporting dimension overlooked in the financial picture. Looking at the list of departures, something worrying emerges: Milan dismantled both its defensive spine and its left flank. Thiaw is a centre-back, Theo Hernandez a left-back, Emerson Royal a right-back. Combined with losses in midfield and attack, the club is mid-way through a rebuild of its defensive system, not a minor adjustment. In football, replacing several defensive links at once always creates integration risk, and that risk does not appear on the balance sheet. It only shows on the pitch, in goals conceded from a lack of understanding between new teammates. The club's absence from European cups should also be read on two levels. The first is financial: fewer matches, less money. The second is sporting: a squad not deep enough to carry a multi-front calendar. The two levels are connected. Turnover fell because of the missing cups, but the cups were missed partly because the squad lacked depth to sustain several competitions. This is a spiral every mid-tier European club knows: a bad season pushes turnover down, lower turnover limits investment capacity, and limited investment makes the following season harder still. So when reading this financial statement, I do not see a club in crisis. I see a club at a crossroads, with two very different paths. One path leads to reinvesting the €133m intelligently, returning the club to European cups, restoring turnover, and beginning a new cycle from a higher position. The other leads to continuing to sell assets to cover costs, until nothing worth selling remains. The financial statement does not say which path the club will take. It only says how far the club has come. The easiest mistake when reading a financial statement is to conclude hastily: loss is bad, profit is good. But with Milan, the reverse reading may be truer. The €24m loss, in a year when the club sold over €133m of players, is not necessarily a sign of business weakness. It is a sign of a business model dependent on selling. And a model dependent on selling is sustainable only as long as there are players to sell. The question the report does not answer is this: once Thiaw, Theo, Reijnders, Colombo and Pobega are gone, who is the next class to sell? The second counter-intuitive angle concerns the Theo Hernandez deal. €25m for a top left-back raises questions. But on close inspection, this may not be a Milan mistake, but a consequence of the contract. When a player nears expiry, bargaining power shifts from club to player and agent. Milan had to sell, or lose him for nothing. In that bind, €25m is still better than zero. So rather than criticising the figure, we should read it as a reminder of the real power in modern football: not money, but contract length. At the same time, Milan's repeated sale of academy players through buy options, as with Genoa for Colombo or Bologna for Pobega, reveals a deliberate model: shifting revenue into a different fiscal year to reduce book volatility. Buy options create a timing lag in recognition, and that lag makes club figures jump between years unpredictably. A glittering profit year may simply result from a few deals booked early, and a loss year may simply result from them being pushed to the next. This is why a club should not be judged on a single fiscal year. The third angle, and perhaps the most important for fans: do not let numbers obscure the sporting story. The Goal.com report has a clear tone — it stresses the phrase cut-price when discussing Morata and Emerson Royal, as if to spark a wave of criticism aimed at the transfer department. A credible financial report presents facts. A report with an agenda chooses words to steer emotion. A discerning reader must tell the two apart, because history shows media pressure on recruitment tends to rise only if the incoming replacements fail. They do not need me to gloss over things. They need me to stand beside them when the flag has faded. With Milan, the flag has not faded, but the balance sheet is losing colour. And the writer's job, as I understand it, is neither to sing the praises of a successful selling summer nor to build a tragedy from an explainable loss. The writer's job is to show that behind every number is a person, and behind every person is a choice. There is something the data sheets can never measure, and perhaps that is what I most want to say here. It is the feeling of a supporter realising the club they love is becoming a selling business. In the stands of San Siro, among the red and black flags, are people who have followed the club for decades, watching generations of players come and go. They are used to partings. But there is a difference between parting with a retiring legend and parting with a peak-age player because the club needs money. The latter leaves a bitterness hard to name. There are quiet afternoons on empty pitches, when the bounce of the ball sounds like a confession never answered. In that silence, one realises football has changed. It is no longer the game of people running on grass, but the game of numbers running on ledgers. A top left-back leaves because his contract is expiring. An academy player leaves because the club needs a clean profit line. A striker is bought and sold a year later to trim the wage bill. Every decision has a reason, and every reason is rational. But when all those rational reasons are added up, what remains is something not entirely comfortable. What is worth thinking about for next season is not whether Milan make a profit or a loss. It is what the club does with that €133m. If the money is reinvested smartly, the selling model can become a springboard — sell players to buy better ones, return the club to European cups, and begin the cycle again from a higher point. If the money is spent on deals like Morata and Emerson Royal, the cycle simply spins in place, and next year's loss will no longer be shielded by a lucky selling summer. For fans, perhaps this is the moment to recall a simple thing: a club does not live on turnover, but on belief. A beautiful balance sheet may please shareholders, but it scores no goals. And for the boys at Milanello, who will read the news of their sale like a weather report, perhaps the only thing they need is not a clean profit line, but a chance to prove they deserve to stay. Football, in the end, remains the story of people running on grass, not numbers running on ledgers. I write this while the transfer window is still open, and the fiscal year 2026 figures are only one chapter in a longer story. There will be other reports, other summers, other names written into the ledger. But if there is one thing I want to keep from all these numbers, it is clear-headedness. Do not let €133m make you forget there are people behind it. And do not let a €24m loss make you think everything has collapsed. The truth usually lies in between, where numbers meet stories, and where a club must choose between selling its future to save its present, or accepting today's loss to build tomorrow.