Paolo Maldini has quit as Italy’s technical director after just 16 days in the role, following the collapse of Andrea Pirlo’s appointment as head coach over his ties to a Russian betting company. Leonardo, the former Brazil international who had been brought in as Maldini’s adviser, has also resigned, plunging the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) into turmoil.
Maldini was appointed on 11 July to oversee the rebuilding of the national side after Italy failed to qualify for a third successive World Cup finals. His primary choice for the head coach role was Pirlo, a former midfield maestro and part of Italy’s 2006 World Cup-winning squad. But despite the appointment being treated as all but certain, fierce opposition erupted over Pirlo’s role as a global ambassador for Russia’s Fonbet, a betting company that has sponsored events involving veterans of Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
“Paolo Maldini and Leonardo quit FIGC after Andrea Pirlo's Italy coach appointment was blocked over Russian betting ties.”
Italian politicians criticised the FIGC’s choice. Carlo Calenda of the centrist Azione party said: “Anyone who is or has been promoting Russia after 2022 should not hold national office.” Pina Picierno, a vice-president of the European Parliament, said Italian football “desperately needed a cultural, ethical and managerial revolution” but that the choice of Pirlo “goes in the exact opposite direction”.
Pirlo, 47, took to Instagram on Monday to confirm he was no longer a candidate. He wrote: “Over the last few days I watched, with great bitterness, the debate that swirled around my name.” He insisted his collaboration with Fonbet was “exclusively of a commercial and sporting nature” and that to assign it a political meaning “means ascribing to me beliefs which I have never expressed and that do not belong to me”.
The Russian ambassador in Rome, Aleksey Paramonov, offered Pirlo support, saying it was “saddening” that “despite [Pirlo’s] extraordinary contribution to world sport … in your own country, you are now being ostracized”.
Pirlo had been Maldini’s first choice after Pep Guardiola rejected the FIGC’s initial approach. Now, with Maldini and Leonardo gone, the newly appointed federation president, Giovanni Malagò, faces an immediate crisis. The federation is left without a clear national team strategy at its lowest ebb in nearly 40 years, after Italy missed the 2018, 2022 and 2026 World Cups. Several high-profile managers are now being linked with the vacancy, including Roberto Mancini, Thiago Motta and Antonio Conte.