Silvio Berlusconi and his Condor swoop to make Monza driving force

O nly one Serie A team remains undefeated in 2023 and it is not the one you might assume. Napoli continue to swagger toward the Scudetto, 15 points clear at the top of Serie A, but they were beaten by Inter at the start of January. Monza drew with the Nerazzurri three days later and have not lost a game since 10 November.

A 1-0 win over Bologna on Sunday lifted them into the top half of the table. They are level on points with Juventus in ninth and while that situation owes to the Bianconeri’s points deduction, Monza have won both head-to-head games. Not bad for a club playing top-flight football for the first time.

OK, so this is not quite the underdog story it sounds like at a first hearing. Monza’s rapid ascent has been bankrolled by the former Milan owner – and former Italian prime minister – Silvio Berlusconi, who bought the club through his holding company Fininvest in 2018. His brother, Paolo, is the club president and Silvio’s long-time collaborator Adriano Galliani the vice-president and CEO.

Monza have been able to outspend most rivals on their climb from the third tier. Italian football finance website calcioefinanza.it calculated Fininvest’s total investment to reach Serie A at €116m, adding up the initial cost of purchasing the club with losses on the balance sheet since.

But money can also be spent poorly. Galliani’s connections and transfer market experience were just as essential. At Milan he was nicknamed ‘Condor’, a reference, as he tells it, to how he would swoop in like a bird of prey and snatch up a deal in the final days of each transfer window.

Galliani had a whole system back then, predicated on his belief that top clubs would always get themselves in a bind adding too many players during