Three-time Italian premier
Silvio Berlusconi turned 80 on Thursday.
The media magnate and leader of the opposition
centre-right Forza Italia (FI) party continues to provoke
contrasting reactions among the Italian public - adored by
supporters and loathed by opponents.
He founded Italy's first nationwide private television
network, Mediaset, and rose to international fame by taking
control of AC Milan in 1986 and payrolling a period of enormous
success on the field that followed.
The billionaire is currently in the process of selling
Milan, one of his most prized possessions, to a Chinese
consortium.
His political career has been hampered by a series of
judicial problems and sex scandals and he was ejected from the
Senate after being definitively convicted of tax fraud in 2013.
Berlusconi, who is gradually returning to the political
fray after having heart surgery earlier this year, once said he
was the man most persecuted by magistrates in history.
On Tuesday he held a meeting with Northern League leader
Matteo Salvini and Giorgio Meloni of the Brothers of Italy (FdI)
party on keeping the centre right united ahead of the December
referendum on Premier Matteo Renzi's Constitutional reform
package to overhaul Italy's political machinery.
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