Silvio Berlusconi, one of the most controversial and influential figures of the past decades, died at age 86 on Monday. The former Italian Prime Minister and AC Milan owner had been hospitalized for leukemia in recent weeks. After selling AC Milan in 2017, Berlusconi decided to acquire Monza one year later with the ambition to bring the club in the first division, and it happened last year as Monza were promoted to the Italian Serie A for the first time in their history.
To do so, he brought former AC Milan CEO and lifetime friend Adriano Galliani with him. The Berlusconi-Galliani era was probably one of the most successful in the history of European soccer. From the late 80's they won 29 trophies in 31 years, including eight Serie A titles, five Champions Leagues, one Coppa Italia, five Supercoppa Italiana, three FIFA Club World Cups and five UEFA Super Cups.
Silvio Berlusconi was to a middle-class family and created his empire as an entrepreneur of construction during the late 1960's when he built Milano Due, a development of 4,000 residential apartments close to Milan. That was the beginning of his legacy, that became much more popular during the 70's when he entered the world of media at first with a small private TV channel, but then expanded into a country-wide network of local TV stations which had similar programming. That system allowed Berlusconi's channels to have all the same shows at the same time, creating a sort of single national network for all the private TV's around the country.
This was seen as breaching Italian public broadcaster RAI's statutory monopoly by creating a national network, which was later abolished. The change of the law happened thanks to his friendship with the former Italian PM Bettino Craxi, officially opening a new era for Italian television and innovation that saw Silvio Berlusconi as one of the most innovative and popular businessmen of the country thanks to Mediaset, his broadcasting company.
In 1986 he acquired AC Milan, while the club was coming out of some difficult years during which they had been forced down to play in the Italian second division. Galliani and Berlusconi worked to make Milan incredibly successful and brought world class players such as Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Robinho, Kaka, Andriy Shevchenko, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Pato, Cafù, Gennaro Gattuso, Andrea Pirlo, and Clarence Seedorf, just to name a few. But Berlusconi eventually decided to sell AC Milan when he understood that he was not financially able to compete with the other top European clubs.
Even if his last years at AC Milan were not as successful as before, his legacy will stay forever and fans will always thank him, as they did last year for the last time in public when they were celebrating their first Scudetto in eleven years in the main square of Milan. Berlusconi was at the club's dinner and when he waved, the fans were all singing his name and the chant: "There is only one President".
Blessing the TL with this wholesome moment ❤️🖤 pic.twitter.com/pH9wsjzzXx
— Grego 🇧🇪 (@Grego_1899) May 23, 2022
Until 1994 Berlusconi was considered a popular businessman and owner and as a consequence of his popularity he decided to enter into politics. Italian traditional political parties were coming from difficult years, as they faced a large scandal of financial corruption called "Mani Pulite." Berlusconi understood that it was the right moment for his political debut and founded Forza Italia, his political party.
Berlusconi exploited his media channels (TV's, newspapers, magazine), but also his way of speaking in front of the cameras and thanks to that he won the general elections just a few months after entering into politics. Berlusconi was a controversial public person, as he also faced several trials over the past thirty years, facing accusations of tax fraud, and sex with underage girls, though ultimately was only convicted once, a 2013 conviction for tax fraud. Despite that was always able to keep his role in Italian politics, and his party is currently still part of the government formed and led by Giorgia Meloni.
Berlusconi served as Prime Minister of Italy in four governments from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006 and 2008 to 2011. He was a member of the Chamber of Deputies from 1994 to 2013, and has served as a member of the Senate of the Republic since 2022, and previously from March to November 2013, and as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) since 2019, and previously from 1999 to 2001.
