The Italian top club AC Milan is parting ways with its technical director Paolo Maldini. The club announced this and confirmed media reports.
According to them, the owner of the football club, the US investor Gerry Cardinale, informed the 54-year-old Maldini of the separation at the beginning of the week.
The official announcement said that the ex-professional had already ended his work at the club on Monday. Details about the reasons were not given.
According to consistent media reports, there were fundamentally different views on the future direction of the club. In addition to Maldini, sports director Frederic Massara also had to go, it said. Milan initially did not announce anything about this. Actually, Maldini and Massara still had contracts until 2024.
According to the club announcement, there will be no successor for Maldini; instead, a group of people in the association should take over his tasks. Media reported that players were partially shocked by Maldini’s ejection.
Maldini Technical Director since 2019
Maldini is arguably the Rossoneri’s greatest club icon. He has played with clubs since his school days and with the professionals from 1985 to 2009. During that time he won the European Cup and the Champions League five times and was champion seven times. He was Milan captain from 1997 until the end of his career.
Maldini has been the club’s technical director since 2019 and is therefore jointly responsible for the squad and the transfer market. Last year, the Milanese surprisingly won the championship title in Serie A. The northern Italians ended the past season in fourth place; in the Champions League they were eliminated in the semifinals by city rivals Inter.
Maldini and club owner Cardinale are said to have never harmonized particularly well since the investor came on board in 2022. Now the ex-professional is mainly accused of a botched transfer phase last summer – the Belgians Charles De Ketelaere and Divock Origi, traded as the most important purchases, flopped.