Cardinale made the claim when speaking in New York at the 'Italian Sports in the World' day.
He said, "Today when we talk about football on a global level and we think about the highest quality, we talk about England, the Premier League. And one of the things I would like to do as an administrator of Milan and as a participant in Serie A is to work with it and with all the members of the Italian ecosystem to bring Italy back to what it was in terms of global European football. I think this is fundamental. I consider Serie A as one of Italy's greatest exports."
For Cardinale, it is not possible to grow the movement if everyone continues to look only at their own little garden.
"If we only focus on winning games, we will not grow. We cannot do it if we do not innovate, if we do not change this paradigm throughout European football where there seems to be this implicit notion that you have to spend everything necessary to win, as if there were a direct correlation between spending and winning."
On the different concept that fans have a say in the clubs they support, Cardinale admits he's still learning.
"In America, the one who spends money to buy the teams is the owner of the team. In Italy, I think the fans believe that the team is their property and we have a job to do to satisfy this concept."
Then on the stadium issue: "What I'm trying to do, and I'm not getting much help in the Italian ecosystem, is a partnership between all the participants in the value chain: the fans, the local government, the national government, the capital to build our infrastructure. We have the Euros coming up in 2032. I'm trying to build a stadium in Milan."
Finally, Cardinale was asked if he wanted to send a message to the fans.
He said: "My message to the fans doesn't seem to work, so I would say the message to the fans is that I will not give you any message until we win. Because I understand that's all you care about. But I will do my job and we will do everything we can to win. But win smart. And if I do that, we will be long-lived. And we will help grow the entire ecosystem, as I believe is our duty."