Paolo Maldini is prepared to walk away from his job running Italy's football rebuild if the federation ultimately blocks Andrea Pirlo from becoming national team coach, ONE reports, describing a standoff at the top of the Azzurri just as they try to recover from missing a third straight World Cup.
Maldini was installed as the Italian federation's technical director after Gennaro Gattuso resigned in April, and accepted the job only on condition of full autonomy over choosing the next coach. Having failed to lure Pep Guardiola to Coverciano, Maldini and his Brazilian advisor Leonardo settled on Pirlo as their one and only candidate for the post.
According to ONE, that is precisely the problem: Maldini regards Pirlo as the sole appointment worth making, and has openly dismissed alternatives such as Antonio Conte and Roberto Mancini as inadequate for the project. Italian reporting has described Mancini, said to be the federation president's own preference, as furious at being passed over.
The appointment has since stalled. Federation president Giovanni Malagò has paused formal talks with Pirlo to examine his position as global ambassador for Fonbet, a Russian-owned betting company, and his reported links to Russian businessman Sergei Lomakin — an association that sits awkwardly given the state of Italy-Russia relations since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The freeze has become as much a political story as a football one. Azione party leader Carlo Calenda argued that anyone who engaged in pro-Russian promotion since 2022 should not hold a national position, European Parliament vice-president Pina Picierno called the prospective hire "a serious mistake," and sports minister Andrea Abodi has also voiced reservations, according to Israeli outlets citing the Italian press.
Pirlo's camp insists the row can be resolved. His legal team says the Fonbet ambassador deal is contractually bound to his coaching job at United FC in Dubai, meaning it would lapse automatically once that contract ends. Pirlo is said to be working to terminate the Emirati deal so formal negotiations with the federation can begin — talks the FIGC has refused to open while he remains under contract elsewhere.
For Maldini, the stakes are personal as much as professional. He left AC Milan after disputes with owner Jerry Cardinale, and took the federation role specifically to have the final say on football matters that he was denied at club level. Watching Rome block his one chosen candidate, ONE suggests, would be read by Maldini as exactly the kind of interference he left Milan to escape.
The federation, meanwhile, is running short on time. Italy needs a permanent coach in place well before it can begin building toward its next major tournament cycle, and a resignation by Maldini so soon after his appointment would plunge the rebuild into fresh chaos rather than the fresh start it was meant to deliver.
Nothing is settled: Malagò has not ruled on whether Pirlo's commercial ties disqualify him, and no timeline for a decision has been made public. But ONE's report frames the coming weeks as a test not just of Pirlo's candidacy, but of whether Maldini was really handed the authority the federation promised him.
