The future of one of the world's most famous stadiums will be decided on Monday when councillors in Milan hold a knife-edge vote on whether to sell the San Siro to the city's two football giants.
Inter Milan and AC Milan, who between them have been crowned European champions 10 times, are waiting to see whether Italy's economic capital will allow them to purchase from the city the site on which the San Siro sits for 197 million euros ($230 million).
A vote in favour would allow the two clubs to build a brand new ground with a capacity of 71 500 on the land adjacent to the current stadium which serves as matchday car parking and a local park.
Once completed the new stadium would replace the current San Siro, which would then be almost entirely demolished in order to make way for new parkland and office space and entertainment facilities with everything to be designed by architectural firms Foster and Partners and MANICA.
Inter and Milan proposed the purchase of the site to the city in March after a previous project – in which the land remained public – was abandoned in 2023 following three years of it winding its way through bureaucratic and political corridors.
Mayor Giuseppe Sala's city government approved a resolution for the sale earlier this month, but in order for just over 28 hectares of public land to be sold to private enterprise that resolution has to pass a vote of Milan's 48 city councillors and the mayor.
There is no guarantee of that happening, and that is a problem for Sala as the purchase proposal needs to be approved before the end of this month, otherwise there won't be enough time to complete the sale before a public building protection order on the second tier comes into effect in November.
Sources within the city council have repeatedly told AFP over the past six months that any vote on the sale could go either way, and public announcements from a number of councillors after the past few weeks confirm that.
POLITICAL BATTLES
There has been anger across the political spectrum at what they see as a bypassing of local democracy as Sala attempts to avoid becoming the mayor who allowed two of the world's biggest football clubs to leave the city.
Two years ago AC Milan acquired land in the nearby town of San Donato Milanese for 40 million euros while Inter looked at sites in suburbs Rozzano and Assago.
And last weekend Inter president and CEO Giuseppe Marrotta called the entire affair "embarrassing", saying that "both clubs will be forced to leave Milan" if the sale is blocked.
Regardless, seven members of the left-leaning majority in the council which backs the city government have said that they will vote against the sale, the latest being Angelo Turco from the Democratic Party (PD).
Turco blasted the proposal for containing "no project for how the stadium and surrounding areas will be developed", saying that the city would be "blindly" selling the area to the two clubs.
The San Siro staying as it is would damage Milan's hopes of hosting matches at Euro 2032, which is scheduled to be jointly held with Turkey, as the current stadium no longer meets Uefa requirements to host major events and was denied the 2027 Champions League final.
Only one of Italy's 14 potential candidates for hosting stadia – Juventus' Allianz Stadium in Turin – is currently in line with the criteria set by European football's governing body.
Italy's football federation needs to communicate to Uefa the five official picks by October next year, when it can present new stadiums or ones which need to be redeveloped as long as works begin by March 2027.
On Thursday Italian football chief Gabriele Gravina said that Milan might not be able to host matches, which would be a huge blow to Italy's richest and most populous urban area, especially as Gravina said Rome could have two venues if Roma manage to successfully push ahead with their own project in the east of the capital city.