Milan remains without a coach, an administrator and a sporting director while Zlatan Ibrahimovic is in the United States, leaving the club in a two-week decision limbo over the structure that will run the next season.
The ownership duo led by Cardinale and RedBird has not closed on replacements and has enlisted headhunters to map the market; Cardinale has signalled he will take as much time as necessary before settling the appointments. The pause has produced names: Glasner is the leading candidate for the bench, while Rangnick is being discussed for a head-of-football role with cross-cutting authority over the sporting director and youth-sector appointments.
That standoff has lasted two weeks. In practical terms it means three of the club’s most consequential roles remain undefined at a moment when decisions on coaching profile, transfer planning and youth integration typically crystallise ahead of preseason.
The choice to rely on external headhunters and on an owner-led timetable is deliberate. Cardinale and RedBird are driving the search rather than rushing a public announcement, a posture that owners see as prudence but that has left operational leadership in temporary suspension.
For supporters the pause looks different. The club’s calm, methodical approach clashes with unrest across the piazza: sections of the fanbase have expressed their frustration with demonstrations in several Italian cities, not only in Milan. The contrast frames the immediate political risk for ownership — the longer selections wait, the louder the public discontent grows.
The personnel options under discussion carry distinct consequences. Confirming Glasner would settle the coaching identity and allow technical staff and transfer profiles to be aligned quickly. Appointing Rangnick as head of football would create a centralised sporting authority with the capacity to appoint or reshape the sporting director role and to influence youth development across the club.
Those are not hypothetical differences: who occupies the bench, who controls recruitment and who oversees the academy will set budgetary priorities, scouting strategy and the season’s footballing direction. The club’s current immobilism therefore affects more than titles; it determines how Milan prepares for the window ahead.
Decision timing is the open question. The pathway laid out by ownership points to a decisive moment in the coming days — the week identified by informed channels as potentially conclusive — but there is no formal confirmation of appointments yet. Cardinale’s insistence on taking time explains why the process has stretched into a fortnight.
The next act must answer a single urgent point: will Milan confirm Glasner on the bench and complete the sporting structure around that appointment, or will it elevate Rangnick into a broad head-of-football role with authority over the sporting director and youth sector? Whichever route Cardinale and RedBird choose this week will fix the club’s operational architecture for the season ahead and end a period in which three key positions have been vacant while Zlatan Ibrahimovic remains abroad.
