Ivan Gazidis will leave AC Milan on 5 December after joining the Italians in 2018 when he left Arsenal.

Ivan Gazidis, Vinai Venkatesham raul sanllehiIvan Gazidis will leave AC Milan on 5 December, almost four years to the day after he joined from Arsenal.

Gazidis, who spent a decade with Arsenal waiting for Arsene Wenger to leave only to jump ship himself a few months later, went to Italy to join his friend, Paul Singer of Elliott Management Corporation.

They owned Milan after a debt default. Gazidis also received a hefty pay increase, which didn’t hurt.

During the summer, EMC sold most of its stake to RedBird Capital Partners, who have now appointed Giorgio Furlani to take over Gazidis’ role as CEO.

In an official statement on the Milan website, Gazidis said, “After four wonderful, challenging years I will be leaving Milan. I owe so much to this Club, its people, its fans and to this city, that literally saved my life”. Gazidis was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2021.

“If the Club is in a better position now than when I arrived, it is entirely due to the work of those I have been surrounded with, from our ownership, to our Chairman, our head coaches, their coaching staffs, our sporting directors, our players and every young boy or girl with dreams in our Academies, our scouts, analysts, medical and support staff, our senior management team and all of the extraordinary people who live for and give everything they have for this Club.

“I have been privileged to work with them all. I have no doubt that this foundation and the people we have in place in every position will take the Club to new levels in the years ahead.”

MILAN, ITALY - SEPTEMBER 23: Ivan Gazidis attends The Best FIFA Football Awards 2019 at the Teatro Alla Scala on September 23, 2019 in Milan, Italy. (Photo by Claudio Villa/Getty Images)
MILAN, ITALY – SEPTEMBER 23: Ivan Gazidis attends The Best FIFA Football Awards 2019 at the Teatro Alla Scala on September 23, 2019 in Milan, Italy. (Photo by Claudio Villa/Getty Images)

“Finally, I want say a personal thank you to our fans. Our fans have carried their Club (and me) through some difficult times through their belief and their strength. I will hold in my heart forever the way they showed their support to me when I was not well. They deserve every good thing. I may leave the Club, but the Club will never leave me.”

AC Milan fans were delighted when they snagged Gazidis. While most Arsenal fans couldn’t understand why he’d departed so soon after finally getting rid of Wenger, there was more annoyance that he’d left when he was actually needed than a sense he was truly holding the club back.

As Wenger was finally forced to call time on his role as manager at Arsenal, it seemed as if Gazidis was about to step up and show us why he had been trying to wrestle power away from the Frenchman for the best part of a decade.

Instead, Gazidis left and Stan Kroenke replaced him with Raul Sanllehi and Vinai Venkatesham (Head of Football and Managing Director respectively) and looking back at the South African’s time at the club it’s hard not to wonder what on earth Arsenal paid him millions for every year.

He is mostly be remembered for the club’s ‘audacious stunt’ in 2013 that delivered a new kit.

Gazidis, however, was integral to the club landing Mesut Ozil, even though folklore will tell you it was all down to Wenger and his established relationship with the player. Gazidis had been meeting with Real Madrid that summer to try and sign Angel di Maria. Madrid wouldn’t sell him so Gazidis returned home only to receive a shock call about Mesut Ozil’s availability.

Arsenal's German-born Bosnian defender Sead Kolasinac (L), Arsenal's German midfielder Mesut Ozil (C) and Arsenal's French midfielder Matteo Guendouzi attend a training session at the Baku Olympic Stadium in Baku on May 28, 2019 on the eve of the UEFA Europa League final football match between Chelsea and Arsenal. (Photo by OZAN KOSE / AFP)
Arsenal’s German-born Bosnian defender Sead Kolasinac (L), Arsenal’s German midfielder Mesut Ozil (C) and Arsenal’s French midfielder Matteo Guendouzi attend a training session at the Baku Olympic Stadium in Baku on May 28, 2019 on the eve of the UEFA Europa League final football match between Chelsea and Arsenal. (Photo by OZAN KOSE / AFP)

“He is a contemplator, a deep thinker, who will calmly consider each decision from every conceivable angle,” the Guardian’s David Hynter wrote of Gazidis and we saw this clearly as he took his time to make up his mind about the Milan move.

He deliberated for months, and Arsenal just let him.

It was this thoroughness and caution, however, that resulted in the club opting for Unai Emery instead of Mikel Arteta when it was perhaps still a little too early for the man who would eventually replace Gazidis’s pick.

So what else did Gazidis do in his time at Arsenal?

Well, Arsenal negotiated a new deal with Emirates for shirt and stadium sponsorship, landed a sleeve sponsor and were supposed to have improved their commercial department under his watch, but not according to Swiss Ramble’s figures.

Many rightly questioned why Arsenal were still so far behind the likes of Manchester United and Manchester City when it comes to commercial revenue.

When Gazidis arrived at the club Arsenal were some £51m behind United’s revenue. That figure stood at £154m as of the 16-17 figures released.

ozil shirt
Shirt deal

Arsenal also moved from Puma to Adidas, but the Puma deal, large as it was at the time it was signed, was quickly outdone by United and Chelsea. Puma’s kits were also largely disappointing.

Gazidis was also integral to Arsenal landing Andrei Arshavin, as Jon Smith detailed in his excellent book, ‘The Deal: Inside the World of a Super-Agent‘.

It was Gazidis who ultimately allowed the £15m deal to go through, even though the agent agreed to pay £1.2m more than Arsenal wanted, hoping the club would pay him back.

Andrey Arshavin scores against Barcelona
Arsenal’s Russian midfielder Andrey Arshavin celebrates after scoring a goal during his team’s Champions League round of 16, 1st leg football match against FC Barcelona on February 16, 2011 at the Emirates Stadium in London. AFP PHOTO/LLUIS GENE. (Photo credit should read LLUIS GENE/AFP/Getty Images)

It must also be remembered that Gazidis was the man at the helm as Arsenal slipped out of the top four for the first time in two decades despite promising us that after the stadium move we would be competing with the likes of Bayern Munich.

He still received a £919k bonus despite those failures.

“No club has a perfect record every year under this scrutiny but Arsenal has probably been, of the big clubs certainly, the most consistently over-performing team over time,” Gazidis said at the 2017 AGM, giving a clear view of how he regards his time at the club.

“That is, despite the criticism we get and the emotion here in the room, and despite some very loud subjective narratives and a great deal of inaccurate information … in fact, on an objective basis, we perform very well and have over a long period of time.”

There are no doubt plenty of things that Gazidis did behind the scenes that we are not aware of or that I’ve forgotten.

But the truth is, no matter what he has done, the impression is he didn’t do much and the figures show he was actually doing pretty badly and that’s what will live on as his Arsenal legacy.