Perth’s historic AC Milan ‘match for points’ scrapped

Perth’s plan to host a landmark clash between Italian football giants AC Milan and Como in February at Optus Stadium has been cancelled after international bodies failed to give the green light to the historic match.

Sports Minister Rita Saffioti confirmed the game had collapsed on Monday night due to the onerous conditions from the Asian Football Confederation.

“The WA Government and Serie A have mutually agreed not to proceed with plans for the AC Milan v Como 1907 fixture due to onerous approval conditions beyond our control,” she said.

“This match would have been a historic world-first, no other European match for points has been played on foreign soil.

“But unfortunately, international football bodies approved the match with extraordinary conditions, meaning we simply could not pursue the fixture any longer.”

The announcement prompted criticism from Opposition Leader Basil Zempilas who said he would have loved to have seen the game played in WA and said its collapse was an embarrassment for the state.

“This is an embarrassment for the Deputy Premier, an absolute embarrassment. She has wasted West Australians’ time, effort and significant taxpayer money on this pet project that now is not coming to fruition,” he said.

“She makes her own decisions. She runs the government’s agenda. She has no one with any checks or balances on her spending, and she has come up embarrassingly short, and this is on her.”

“This is a risk to West Australian taxpayers. This is a risk to WA because there is no result, no dividend.”

Zempilas questioned how much had been spent on the effort to bring the game to WA to date and why questions weren’t asked about the hurdles the game faced during a taxpayer-funded government visit to Europe in August.

Saffioti rubbished Zempilas’ criticism, saying no money had been spent during the negotiations and that Tourism Minister Reece Whitby and Tourism WA had been working alongside her closely during negotiations.

She said she was not embarrassed that the match had not come off.

“Absolutely not. The fact is, WA has gotten further than any other jurisdiction ever in the world, we’ve built great relationships,” she said.

“I think the Leader of the Opposition is opposed to any Italian football. I’m not sure what he’s got against Italian football, but he’s opposed everything I’ve ever done. He’s opposed every project I’ve ever delivered, every project I’ve done, yet he’s out there pursuing Bell Towers in the middle of the river and $1.5 billion for the Commonwealth Games.”

The historic match-up was set to be the first European league match played for points on foreign soil, and was in October “reluctantly approved” by the continent’s governing body UEFA.

AC Milan first began a search for a host in February because of the unavailability of the club’s 75,000-seat stadium, San Siro, due to the Winter Olympics.

The club had already established a strong relationship with the WA government having played pre-season friendlies in Perth, while Australia was viewed as a favourable destination with a strong fan base.

Saffioti said AC Milan had initially approached WA to host the game.

She said the deal fell apart last night because of onerous conditions from the Asian Football Confederation on the match, including that the match could not be described as a Serie A match.

Saffioti said that if those conditions were not met, Football Australia could be fined, and there was a requirement for the WA government to indemnify Football Australia, which would mean taxpayers would be on the hook for any breaches.

“We sought to mitigate that risk. We sought to remove the indemnity and have it covered on a number of fronts, we just could not get that indemnity excluded,” she said.

She said she had not given up her dream of hosting a European league match in WA.

Serie A president Ezio Simonelli said the approvals process had made the match impossible.

“Despite the fact that Lega Calcio Serie A had followed punctually and correctly the complex authorisation process, which lasted over twelve months, through the approval of the participating clubs, the Lega Calcio Serie A Assembly, the FIGC Federal Council, the UEFA Executive Committee, the Football Australia, and had even accepted the highly questionable sporting conditions imposed by the Asian Football Confederation, due to an escalation of further unacceptable demands made in the last few hours by the AFC to the Australian Football Federation and, consequently, to the government of Western Australia and the Lega Calcio Serie A, it has become impossible to play the Milan-Como match in Perth on 8th February,” he said.

“While expressing disappointment at the outcome of this project, we remain firmly convinced that this conclusion is a missed opportunity in the growth of Italian football at an international level, which also deprives the many Serie A fans abroad of the dream of attending a match of their favourite team in person”.

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