Torino president lifts lid on Milan’s ‘insulting’ Belotti offer and denies January Ricci agreement

Torino president Urbano Cairo has denied that he promised Samuele Ricci to AC Milan months ago, and shed some light on the Andrea Belotti links.

Earlier in the summer mercato, Milan completed the signing of Ricci from Torino after years of links with him. He was the first piece of the midfield rebuild, which ended up being completed by Luka Modric, Ardon Jashari and Adrien Rabiot.

Rewinding the clock to the 2017 summer transfer window, the Rossoneri ended up getting embroiled in a saga involving Torino over Belotti. He was the big-name striker the management wanted, and it has been widely reported that the Granata turned down over €80m for him.

Insulting Milan offer

Cairo appeared on TeleLombardia to celebrate his 20th anniversary as president. During the interview, the Granata chief also discussed two negotiations with Milan, and his comments were relayed by MilanNews.

Have you ever regretted not selling Belotti to Milan?

“This is an urban legend. Belotti had a €100m release clause. Then, in the year they wanted to sign Belotti, 2017, Milan had already come to me asking for Belotti; they had launched a very expensive transfer campaign.

“They had spent something like €180, €200m at the time. They came to us and said, ‘Look…’ Fassone told me, and he called me one morning: ‘…we’d like to sign Belotti.’ I said, ‘Well, let’s talk about it. What offer are you making?

“And he said: ‘We don’t have any more money now, but what we could do is to sell Belotti on a loan for a fee, like €5m, with an obligation to buy under certain conditions’.

“And I say: ‘Well, sorry, Marco, Fassone, I have a centre-forward like Belotti, he’s scored 26 goals, I’m having a hard time selling him because obviously the fans would be very unhappy, can I ever Belotti for a loan for €5m and maybe a mandatory buy-out?’ It’s something that’s almost an insult. That was Milan’s offer.”

Is it true that Ricci and Milan were ‘betrothed’ in January?

“Absolutely not. There was nothing in that regard. Ricci was a player Milan were interested in, but I never mentioned this deal in January, also because the boy was important to us, to us as a team, to have a good season like we did. We were hoping to achieve something more, and Zapata’s injury also significantly penalized us.”