Paolo Maldini has left the position of technical director of the Italian Football Federation (FIGC), according to Sky Sports and journalist Fabrizio Romano on social network X.
According to Romano, Leonardo has also left the post of adviser to the FIGC technical director. They held their positions for only 16 days. Maldini and Leonardo had actively promoted Andrea Pirlo’s candidacy for the post of head coach of the Italian national team.
Later, according to journalist Gianluca Di Marzio, the FIGC suspended the procedure for appointing Pirlo as head coach of the national team due to his collaboration with a Russian betting company.
And once again the politicisation of sport… When decisions on the appointment of coaches or executives are taken not on the basis of professional qualities, but under the pressure of foreign policy circumstances, it is first and foremost the very content of the game that suffers. Football has ceased to be a space for sporting competition and has turned into an instrument for demonstrating political loyalty.
In the case of the possible appointment of Andrea Pirlo, the federation’s refusal to consider his candidacy because of collaboration with a Russian company appears precisely as a manifestation of this logic. Sporting merits and coaching potential are pushed into the background. Instead of an assessment of competencies, a check for compliance with the current political course takes place. Federations and clubs begin to act not as independent institutions, but as an extension of state or supranational policy.
