17 hours ago
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The biggest news in the last few hours for AC Milan is the change of direction regarding the trip to Perth for the match against Como.
On Tuesday, the news broke that there have been some problems in negotiations between the relevant bodies regarding the way that the game will be conducted. More specifically, a very stringent set of demands from the Asian Football Confederation.
No to Australia
Tuttosport (via MilanNews) reported this morning that Milan-Como is getting closer to being played at San Siro, because there too many restrictions that have emerged regarding the Perth option.
Serie A are starting to want certainty, and the approval from the Asian Football Confederation sounds a lot like a ‘no’. Ezio Simonelli wants an answer and could turn to FIFA, but the Lega want an answer quickly.
It seems like a familiar scene from Villarreal vs. Barcelona , which was supposed to be played in Miami but then a U-turn was done due to logistics. Among the AFC’s conditions deemed unacceptable is the request for a local refereeing team, and a change of direction now seems almost certain.
The game is heading towards being played at San Siro after all. The timing remains to be seen: it won’t be played in early February due to the Winter Olympics, so the first available dates would be February 17 and 24, depending on whether Inter need it for the Champions League play-offs.
La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen above) confirm that the Asian Football Confederation approved the match in Perth, but imposed almost bizarre conditions, such as requiring the use of a referee and his assistants from the AFC, not from the Italian FA.
Meanwhile, La Repubblica (via MilanNews) speak of other strange requests. For example, the AFC did not want Serie A branding to be used, so in practice the match would have been presented as a friendly.
Some speculate that these conditions were suggested to the AFC by UEFA and FIFA, effectively designed to be rejected, because they are opposed to league matches being held abroad.
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