logo
Berlusconi family leaving soccer again with sale of relegated Monza to American fund

Berlusconi family leaving soccer again with sale of relegated Monza to American fund

MILAN (AP) — The Berlusconi family is leaving soccer again with the sale of Monza to American fund Beckett Layne Ventures.
Fininvest, the Berlusconi's family holding company, announced the deal in a statement Tuesday.
'The transaction provides for an initial transfer of 80% of the shares by this summer, with the remaining 20% to be transferred by June 2026,' it said.
Fininvest purchased Monza in 2018 and oversaw the club's rise from the third division to Serie A. But the club based just outside Milan finished last in the recently concluded Serie A season and was relegated to Serie B.
Fininvest was previously controlled by the late Silvio Berlusconi — the three-time Italian premier who died in 2023. Berlusconi owned AC Milan from 1986 to 2017.
BLV is paying about 30 million euros ($35 million) for Monza, according to the Gazzetta dello Sport. Financial details of the deal were not announced.
Led by Brandon Berger, BLV is a financial partner and strategic advisor for companies operating in the sports, media, and entertainment sectors.
Winnipeg Jets Game Days
On Winnipeg Jets game days, hockey writers Mike McIntyre and Ken Wiebe send news, notes and quotes from the morning skate, as well as injury updates and lineup decisions. Arrives a few hours prior to puck drop.
___
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Fluminense says goalkeeper Fabio has broken Peter Shilton's record for most soccer games played
Fluminense says goalkeeper Fabio has broken Peter Shilton's record for most soccer games played

Winnipeg Free Press

time24 minutes ago

  • Winnipeg Free Press

Fluminense says goalkeeper Fabio has broken Peter Shilton's record for most soccer games played

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazilian club Fluminense says goalkeeper Fabio has broken the world record for most competitive soccer matches played with his 1,391st appearance, surpassing the mark set by former England goalkeeper Peter Shilton in the 1990s. Fluminense said the 44-year-old Fabio pulled ahead of Shilton in the team's 2-0 win over Colombian club America in the round of 16 of the Copa Libertadores, South America's top club competition. Fluminense advanced 4-1 on aggregate. Fabio was honored by his club after the match at Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro with a commemorative plaque and an image marking the record. Fluminense's goalkeeper wore a patch mentioning the milestone. South America's soccer governing body CONMEBOL also congratulated him on reaching 1,391 career appearances. 'It is a tremendous satisfaction to reach this record wearing the Fluminense jersey, which opened the doors for me,' Fabio said. 'Now it's time to keep playing and strive for new achievements with every game.' There is no single official soccer body that tracks players' appearances across domestic and international competitions, which makes record-keeping complicated and subject to disputes about what counts as a competitive match. However, Shilton was widely seen as the record-holder for most competitive games played. Guinness World Records had him at 1,390 appearances in all competitions, though Shilton's personal count is 1,387. The discrepancy comes down to which matches should count as official senior appearances. Fabio began his career in the late 1990s, playing mostly with Brazilian club Cruzeiro. He has 976 appearances with Cruzeiro, 235 with Fluminense, 150 with Vasco da Gama and 30 with Uniao Bandeirante. Fabio helped lead Fluminense, which he joined in 2022, to the semifinals of the Club World Cup earlier this year. He was a key player in the team's maiden Copa Libertadores title in 2023. Fabio played for Brazil's youth teams but never for the country's senior squad. ___ AP soccer:

Cadillac counts down to its F1 debut with lessons from NASA and the ‘inverse Ted Lasso'
Cadillac counts down to its F1 debut with lessons from NASA and the ‘inverse Ted Lasso'

Winnipeg Free Press

time24 minutes ago

  • Winnipeg Free Press

Cadillac counts down to its F1 debut with lessons from NASA and the ‘inverse Ted Lasso'

The clock is ticking until Cadillac joins the Formula 1 grid. Literally. 'On the wall of every office that we have is a countdown clock,' team principal Graeme Lowdon told The Associated Press in a recent interview. 'It's counting down to two things.' One is the first 'fire-up' of the car with its engine, and then the other is free practice at Cadillac's first official F1 session in Melbourne, Australia in March next year. It will be the start of a new mission for General Motors, and the end of a process to join F1 which included years of negotiations, a change of name and leadership, even a U.S. Justice Department investigation. Ted Lasso in F1 As a British racing boss creating an American team, Lowdon feels like an 'inverse Ted Lasso,' the fictional U.S. soccer coach in London. Hired in part for his experience navigating the sport's complex process for approving new teams, Lowdon says he's worked hard to adapt to U.S. racing culture for a team which will build its cars out of Fishers, Indiana. There's also a design and manufacturing site near the British Grand Prix track at Silverstone, but Cadillac has a vision of running an 'American team,' Lowdon said. The idea is to get as many different perspectives on designing a race car as possible. 'Formula 1 is a very creative business,' Lowdon said. 'With diversity of thought comes innovation and hopefully lap time.' Lessons from NASA Past attempts to operate an F1 team outside of the sport's heartlands in England and Italy have rarely worked. Cadillac is taking lessons from the 1960s space race. Rather than read a list of racing failures, Lowdon looked for non-F1 projects with 'immovable deadlines, huge amount of public scrutiny, multiple sites, highly technical,' he said. 'The best example I could find were the the Apollo missions.' 'I looked a lot into how NASA had done the management structure of the business. I thought there were some very clever things that they did that we could build into a new design of a Formula 1 team, a complete new way of managing it. The primary objective was to maximize peer-to-peer communication between engineers.' F1's other American team, Haas, is more reliant on Europe. Its HQ is in North Carolina but the team is largely based in Britain and designs its cars in Italy. Drivers on the short list While existing teams have their race drivers heavily involved in the design of 2026 cars, Lowdon said the fact that Cadillac hasn't confirmed who its drivers will be shouldn't be seen as a setback. There are 'three or four' names on Cadillac's shortlist halfway through the 2025 season and Lowdon says Cadillac has more leverage in contract discussions than usual. 'Because we're out of sync with the other teams, we're not under the same time pressure,' Lowdon said. 'No driver is sitting there saying, 'Oh yeah, Aston Martin are going to sign me next week,' if you don't sign them.' Thursdays Keep up to date on sports with Mike McIntyre's weekly newsletter. The new team could be a way back to F1 for drivers like Sergio Perez, Valtteri Bottas or Zhou Guanyu who lost their race seats for 2025. There's also been speculation about various Americans and ex-F1 drivers like Mick Schumacher. Bottas, a 10-time race winner for Mercedes, joked about the race to sign for Cadillac with a viral video on social media remarking on the 'nice seat' in a Cadillac SUV. 'I've known him for a long time. I know his sense of humor, I appreciate his sense of humor and he's got a big fan following,' Lowdon said. 'My phone got super busy almost immediately when (Cadillac's F1 entry) was confirmed. It was very clear that everyone wants to drive a Cadillac and so I guess Valtteri has just made it even more clear.' ___ AP auto racing:

Trump thinks owning a piece of Intel would be a good deal for the US. Here's what to know
Trump thinks owning a piece of Intel would be a good deal for the US. Here's what to know

Winnipeg Free Press

time24 minutes ago

  • Winnipeg Free Press

Trump thinks owning a piece of Intel would be a good deal for the US. Here's what to know

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — President Donald Trump wants the U.S. government to own a piece of Intel, less than two weeks after demanding the Silicon Valley pioneer dump the CEO that was hired to turn around the slumping chipmaker. If the goal is realized, the investment would deepen the Trump administration's involvement in the computer industry as the president ramps up the pressure for more U.S. companies to manufacture products domestically instead of relying on overseas suppliers. What's happening? The Trump administration is in talks to secure a 10% stake in Intel in exchange for converting government grants that were pledged to Intel under President Joe Biden. If the deal is completed, the U.S. government would become one of Intel's largest shareholders and blur the traditional lines separating the public sector and private sector in a country that remains the world's largest economy. Why would Trump do this? In his second term, Trump has been leveraging his power to reprogram the operations of major computer chip companies. The administration is requiring Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices, two companies whose chips are helping to power the craze around artificial intelligence, to pay a 15% commission on their sales of chips in China in exchange for export licenses. Trump's interest in Intel is also being driven by his desire to boost chip production in the U.S., which has been a focal point of the trade war that he has been waging throughout the world. By lessening the country's dependence on chips manufactured overseas, the president believes the U.S. will be better positioned to maintain its technological lead on China in the race to create artificial intelligence. Didn't Trump want Intel's CEO to quit? That's what the president said August 7 in an unequivocal post calling for Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan to resign less than five months after the Santa Clara, California, company hired him. The demand was triggered by reports raising national security concerns about Tan's past investments in Chinese tech companies while he was a venture capitalist. But Trump backed off after Tan professed his allegiance to the U.S. in a public letter to Intel employees and went to the White House to meet with the president, who applauded the Intel CEO for having an 'amazing story.' Why would Intel do a deal? The company isn't commenting about the possibility of the U.S. government becoming a major shareholder, but Intel may have little choice because it is currently dealing from a position of weakness. After enjoying decades of growth while its processors powered the personal computer boom, the company fell into a slump after missing the shift to the mobile computing era unleashed by the iPhone's 2007 debut. Intel has fallen even farther behind in recent years during an artificial intelligence craze that has been a boon for Nvidia and AMD. The company lost nearly $19 billion last year and another $3.7 billion in the first six months of this year, prompting Tan to undertake a cost-cutting spree. By the end of this year, Tan expects Intel to have about 75,000 workers, a 25% reduction from the end of last year. Would this deal be unusual? Although rare, it's not unprecedented for the U.S. government to become a significant shareholder in a prominent company. One of the most notable instances occurred during the Great Recession in 2008 when the government injected nearly $50 billion into General Motors in return for a roughly 60% stake in the automaker at a time it was on the verge of bankruptcy. The government ended up with a roughly $10 billion loss after it sold its stock in GM. Would the government run Intel? U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC during a Tuesday interview that the government has no intention of meddling in Intel's business, and will have its hands tied by holding non-voting shares in the company. But some analysts wonder if the Trump administration's financial ties to Intel might prod more companies looking to curry favor with the president to increase their orders for the company's chips. What government grants does Intel receive? Intel was among the biggest beneficiaries of the Biden administration's CHIPS and Science Act, but it hasn't been able to revive its fortunes while falling behind on construction projects spawned by the program. The company has received about $2.2 billion of the $7.8 billion pledged under the incentives program — money that Lutnick derided as a 'giveaway' that would better serve U.S. taxpayers if it's turned into Intel stock. 'We think America should get the benefit of the bargain,' Lutnick told CNBC. 'It's obvious that it's the right move to make.'

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store