Silvio Berlusconi died on Monday at the age of 86and the club in which he has invested for the past five years, AC Monza, will be under a new patron, a deal recently concluded.

Evangelos Marinakis, who was investigated for racketeering and betting, will lead the club from Monza

In a deal that has been discussed over the past few months and was due to be completed a few days ago, Silvio Berlusconi has prepared his “departure”, leaving the Monza club in the hands of a new investor, according to Corriere dello Sport.

Since joining the team in 2018 to finish 11th in Serie A this season, Monza have quickly progressed from Serie C to wins over Juventus, Inter and Napoli.

As well as the big investment, Berlusconi was inspired to appoint former Primavera boss Raffaele Palladino as coach after a difficult start to the season with Giovanni Stroppa on the bench.

The future patron of the team, the Greek Evangelos Marinakis, a big football fan and a successful politician, owns one of the largest commercial fleets in the world, inherited from his father.

It also owns two important clubs, Olympiakos Piraeus in Greece and Nottingham Forest in England (acquired in 2017 and promoted to the Premier League).

Marinakis, who was investigated by the Hellenic Football Federation for match-fixing and involvement in the bookmaking mafia, managed to bring important footballers such as Marcelo and James Rodriguez to Piraeus.

In Nottingham, the Greek oversaw the transfers of Remo Freuler from Atalanta, Renan Lodi from Atletico, as well as the acquisition of former Real Madrid goalkeeper Keylor Navas.

>> VIDEO The obscene reward that Silvio Berlusconi promised to the football players of Monza