When AC Milan opened Casa Milan Dubai in 2023, it became the first Italian football club, and one of only a handful of global football brands, to establish a dedicated regional office in the Middle East. For regional director Greta Nardeschi, that distinction is more than a footnote. It signals a fundamental shift in how one of the sport’s most storied clubs sees the MENA region: not as a seasonal commercial stop, but as a permanent strategic home.

Here, Nardeschi outlines how AC Milan is leveraging Dubai’s unrivalled connectivity to build a year-round platform spanning sponsorship, youth academies, women’s sport and cultural partnerships, from the Gulf to North Africa, and why she believes local presence, not global scale, is what will define football’s next era of growth.

AC Milan became the first Serie A club to open a regional office outside Italy, choosing Dubai in 2023. Why was this market important enough to warrant a physical presence rather than managing the region remotely?

The decision was very deliberate. The Middle East is not a market you can truly understand or serve remotely. Relationships matter here, trust matters here, and the best opportunities are built through consistency, permanent presence and long-term commitment.

Dubai gave us the right platform for that. It is one of the world’s great international business hubs, it connects Europe, the Gulf, Asia and Africa, and it reflects many of the same qualities we associate with AC Milan: ambition, elegance, innovation and global relevance. Casa Milan Dubai allowed us to be closer to our fans, closer to our partners and closer to the institutions shaping the future of sport in the region.

The office carries a deep meaning. It says that AC Milan is not coming to the region only for a match, a tour or a one-off commercial opportunity. We are here every day, listening, learning and building. That is why we were proud to be the first Italian football club to open a dedicated office in the MENA region, and one of a very small number of international football brands to do so at all.

This market is also home to our principal partner, Emirates, and to one of the most passionate and fast-growing football audiences in the world. It is a region where AC Milan feels a natural cultural connection: Italian and Arab cultures share a deep appreciation for family, heritage, hospitality, style, excellence and, of course, football.

Strategically, Dubai gives us a true regional hub, a place that is always connected, always active, and able to open doors across the wider Middle East and beyond. From the dynamism of the UAE to the inspiration and scale of Saudi Arabia, the passion of Egypt’s football fandom, and the growing opportunities in Bahrain and Oman, this market allows us to build relationships in a more authentic and consistent way. We chose to be present, not just visible.

How much of your Middle East strategy is driven by commercial opportunity versus building long-term sporting and grassroots connections with local communities?

The honest answer is that it has to be both and, more importantly, the two must reinforce each other.

Commercial growth matters. It allows us to invest properly, activate with quality, and bring the best of AC Milan to the region. But if a partnership is only a logo, it will not last. In this part of the world, the most valuable partnerships are the ones that create genuine local relevance: for families, young players, women in sport, entrepreneurs, fans, institutions, education, tourism and destinations.

Our regional strategy is built around three pillars: commercial and institutional partnerships, brand and cultural visibility, and grassroots development. That means working with premium regional brands, but also investing in youth, local talent and purpose-driven initiatives.

We already have tangible examples of this approach. Since our inception, from our collaboration with the first Emirati filmmaker Nayla Al Khaja to our four academies across the GCC connecting us with young players and families at community level. In Saudi Arabia, our collaboration with Visa supported a women’s football and empowerment initiative featuring Nadia Nadim. During the Supercoppa in Riyadh, we worked with local artists and Saudi fashion influencers to bring AC Milan colours into the cultural conversation of a traditional Majlis in a way that felt genuinely relevant to the market. In Dubai, to celebrate the club’s 125th anniversary, we lit the city skyline with a spectacular 1,000-drone show, a moment designed not only for visibility, but to connect emotionally with fans and the wider community.

This is the intersection where we believe a modern football club should operate: sport, business, culture, women’s empowerment and local community impact. Today, global scale alone no longer guarantees success. Relevance does. And in the MENA region, relevance is always built locally. That is what we mean by glocalisation, not as a buzzword or a marketing tactic, but as a genuine strategic approach. We do not simply sell partnerships. We build them together.

Your partnership with Emirates has become one of football’s most recognisable sponsorship deals. How has that relationship evolved beyond branding, particularly in helping AC Milan deepen its footprint in the UAE and wider region?

Emirates is much more than a shirt partner for AC Milan. It is one of the most respected and longest-running relationships in world football, and it has become part of our modern identity as a global club. The partnership began in 2007, and over time it has evolved from visibility into shared storytelling, international connectivity and meaningful regional engagement.

What makes the relationship powerful is the alignment of values. Emirates represents excellence, service, ambition and a global mindset. AC Milan represents Italian heritage, performance, style and passion. Together, these values travel naturally across markets.

In the UAE, Emirates has also helped us deepen our credibility because it is a homegrown global brand with extraordinary trust in the region. Our collaboration has supported moments that go beyond the pitch: regional activations, hospitality, partner engagement and landmark visibility. AC Milan’s presence at major UAE moments, from Expo 2020 Dubai to the Dubai World Cup 2024 and DP World Tour 2025, helped us connect with fans and business communities in a way that is locally relevant.

The opening of Casa Milan Dubai further strengthened that dynamic. When you have a long-standing partner like Emirates, and then you create a permanent local base, you move from sponsorship to ecosystem-building. That is the future of football partnerships: not just brand exposure, but platforms that connect people, business, culture and community. You can see that in campaigns like Travel Talks and ICE, where the story is not simply about a logo on a shirt, it is about connecting people, cultures and destinations through two brands that both represent excellence and international reach.

More global football clubs are aggressively targeting the Gulf. What makes AC Milan’s Middle East strategy materially different from competitors that may only engage with the region periodically?

The key difference is permanence. Many clubs come to the Gulf when there is a tour, a match, a commercial roadshow or a short-term opportunity. We respect that, the region is important for global football, but AC Milan’s approach is not episodic. We have built a regional home.

Casa Milan Dubai gives us a year-round presence. It allows us to speak to partners continuously, support academies properly, understand local calendars, work with institutions, and build activations that fit the culture of each market. The UAE is not the same as Saudi Arabia; Riyadh is not the same as Jeddah; Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar each have their own dynamics. You only understand those differences if you are present.

The second difference is AC Milan’s brand territory. We are not only a football club. We come from Milan, one of the world’s capitals of fashion, design, business and culture. That gives us permission to operate at the intersection of sport, lifestyle, luxury, entertainment and innovation. We have demonstrated this through fashion-led concepts, premium partner gatherings in Dubai and lifestyle storytelling that connects Milan with the Middle East in ways most football clubs simply cannot.

The third difference is purpose. We want to build programmes that have legacy: academies, coach education, women’s football, community sport, health and performance initiatives, and local content in Arabic. That is a very different mindset from a club that flies in, plays a match and flies out.

The Gulf’s sports economy is expanding rapidly. How do you see the Middle East reshaping the global football business model over the next decade?

The Middle East is already reshaping football. It is no longer just a destination for sponsorship or events, it is becoming a strategic centre of gravity for the global sports economy. The region is investing in infrastructure, talent, fan experiences, media, tourism, women’s sport, esports and major events. That creates a much broader model for what a football club can do and be.

In the UAE, Dubai continues to position itself as a global sports and business hub, with a strong event calendar, world-class connectivity and a sophisticated corporate market. In Saudi Arabia, sport is a central pillar of Vision 2030, and the country will host the FIFA World Cup in 2034. Across the Gulf there is a clear ambition to use sport as a driver of participation, tourism, national pride and economic diversification.

For clubs like AC Milan, this changes the model entirely. The opportunity is not only to sell sponsorship rights, it is to co-create platforms. I think the next decade will see the most successful clubs act more like global sport-and-culture platforms. They will need local teams, local intelligence and local trust. That is exactly why we decided to build from Dubai rather than manage the region from Europe.

Fan engagement today goes far beyond match screenings and merchandise. How is AC Milan using digital platforms, creator partnerships, gaming or localised content to connect with younger fans across the Middle East?

Younger fans do not experience football only through 90 minutes. They discover clubs through short-form content, fashion, music, gaming, creators, lifestyle moments and values. So our role is to make AC Milan feel close to them, even if they live thousands of kilometres from San Siro.

We are doing this in several ways. First, through localised storytelling — Arabic-first and regionally relevant content is a priority, because we know the fanbase is young, digitally active and highly engaged with global sport and culture. Second, we create moments that feel native to the region. The 1,000-drone display over Dubai for our 125th anniversary used the city’s skyline as a stage for AC Milan’s symbols — that is not a traditional football activation, it is a cultural and visual moment designed for fans to share.

Third, we work at the intersection of football and lifestyle. AC Milan has genuine credibility in fashion and design because of our Milanese identity. Concepts around limited-edition retail, lifestyle pop-ups and content with local creators allow us to speak to fans who may first connect with the club through style or culture before they ever become matchday supporters.

Fourth, we use real experiences as content engines. Academy sessions, partner events, women’s football initiatives, legends visits and fan activations all become stories that live digitally. The objective is not only reach, it is relevance.

What metrics define success for your Dubai office? What milestones have you hit since launching?

We measure success across several dimensions, because the office was created to build a regional platform, not deliver a single KPI.

Commercially, we look at the quality and value of partnerships, the number of regional and global brands we can engage from the Middle East, and how well those partnerships activate locally. But we also measure fan growth, digital engagement, institutional relationships, academy participation, media visibility and the strength of our local network.

Since launching Casa Milan Dubai, we have achieved several important milestones. We established a permanent regional hub in DIFC; we reinforced relationships with key partners including Emirates, SIRO and CFI; we supported the launch of the AC Milan International Academy in Dubai, Sharjah, Jeddah, Bahrain and soon Abu Dhabi; we have maintained our long-standing academy footprint in Kuwait; and we have used Dubai as a destination for global partner gatherings. We also launched our first women’s initiative in the region, completed over 14 international visits involving legends and club representatives, and we are excited about what the coming year will bring.

We also track qualitative progress. Are we being invited into more strategic conversations? Are regional institutions seeing AC Milan as a serious long-term partner? Are partners asking us to co-create rather than simply buy assets? Are fans seeing AC Milan as present in their market, not just visible on television? Those questions matter just as much as the numbers.

Given ongoing geopolitical uncertainty globally, does having an established base in Dubai offer greater resilience and how are you thinking about long-term expansion from the UAE into the wider MENA region?

Dubai gives us both resilience and reach. It is one of the most connected cities in the world, commercially and geographically, and it provides a stable, international base from which we can engage the wider Middle East, North Africa and South Asia.

From Dubai, we can be close to the UAE market while also engaging Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Egypt and other territories. But we want to expand in a way that is thoughtful and locally relevant. Our philosophy is presence before promotion: we want to understand each market, identify the right partners, and build programmes that serve local ambitions — not simply extend a regional template.

Dubai will remain our regional home, but the ambition is broader. We are building a MENA platform with local depth, not just regional coverage. That is the kind of expansion that is sustainable — and that is the kind of club AC Milan wants to be in this part of the world.

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