AC Milan will only be able to sign only one English player during this transfer window. With the club increasingly linked to players from England this January it’s a complication the Rossoneri have to deal with thanks to a specific rule of the Italian FA about non-European players coming to Serie A from another league. The Italian giants have entered the January transfer window after deciding to replace former manager Paulo Fonseca with former FC Porto’s Sergio Conceicao at the end of December and now, despite winning the Supercoppa Italiana 3-2 in the final against Inter, the Rossoneri are looking to make some adjustments to their roster.
Noah Okafor has already left the club to join RB Leipzig, and now the eyes of the American owners are focused on two English players — Manchester United winger Marcus Rashford and Manchester City’s defender Kyle Walker. Both players are currently on the radar of multiple European sides, after they decided to ask out of their Premier League clubs in January.
AC Milan, however, will be able to sign only one of the two, according to a new rule from the Italian FA. After England first left the European Union, the Italian federation (FIGC) decided to level the conditions of EU players and players coming from England. Every season, Serie A teams can only sign two non-EU players coming from abroad, “one of which provided that at the time of the transfer request he has been called up for at least two official matches of his own category National team in the 12 months preceding the date of the same request, or for five official matches of his own category National team in his career,” according to the document signed on May 2024.
In the summer 2024, AC Milan signed two non-EU players as Serbian defender Strahinja Pavlovic arrived from RB Salzburg and Brazilian left back Emerson Royal joined the Rossoneri from Tottenham. At the same time English players have the right for one extra slot and this is why AC Milan can sign one between Walker and Rashford, but can’t sign both during the January transfer window.
English striker Tammy Abraham, who joined AC Milan from AS Roma in the summer 2024, has a different situation as his slot doesn’t count since he joined from another Serie A team, because this specific clause of the rule is only valid for players arriving from abroad. AC Milan will have now to make a decision on who they want to sign, knowing that they can only sign one English player during this session.
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