Boban opens up on ‘shameful’ Maldini sacking and failed signings in explosive interview

Zvonimir Boban has spoken out on the sacking of his friend Paolo Maldini by AC Milan, and about some of the signings he wanted to make while at the club.

Boban is someone that has never been afraid to speak his mind, as shown when he was sacked by Milan at the beginning of March 2020 after criticising the ownership in an interview. A legal battle then ensued, but the former midfielder never backed down from his stance that he did the right thing.

The Croatian labelled the ownership ‘disrespectful’ and ‘inelegant’ as relations soured. He was fired shortly thereafter for just cause, but recently has been commenting more and more on matters at Milan, especially given his role as a pundit for Sky.

Boban spoke on the YouTube channel ‘Milan Hello’ with Andrea Longoni about some of the most interesting anecdotes from his time at Milan, with his comments relayed by MilanNews.

Is there a big difference today between Inter and Milan? And at what level?

“When we look at the results, it’s obvious. When we look at the club, it’s obvious. When we look at the whole thing, what Inter and Milan represent today is obvious. It’s easy to understand, it’s a shame, but on a technical level I don’t think it’s that far away.

“In terms of how to create a team that works well, yes, it’s far away. If Milan make three, four correct additions that rebalance things a bit and give logic to the game, which isn’t there, because it hasn’t been there all year, then we can hope to have a real team.

“Now this isn’t, but Inter is, a competitive team, that always knows what it’s doing, that has a clear identity. We don’t, we don’t have an identity, in fact, there have been 100 identities this season, and in the end none of them was right.

“Because you can’t have a clear identity with these players, how they were bought and make them play. And this, you want many of us too, we understood it since the summer. It was understood since the summer and then it was unfortunately demonstrated It is true.”

More Stories / The Match

CorSera: Bartesaghi hopes grow ahead of derby against Inter – the latest

4 March 2026, 11:40

CM: Pulisic’s position against Inter in question – the alternatives Allegri is considering

4 March 2026, 11:15

Kaka previews derby and tells AC Milan to believe in Scudetto comeback: “It can be done”

4 March 2026, 10:50

Let’s take a step back to 2019 when you became a director at Milan. What memories do you have?

“I left FIFA, Paolo called me when Leonardo left. My work at FIFA was pretty much done, it just needed to be administered after we cleaned up the organisation in three years. Paolo wanted to leave, I told him: ‘You are more Milan than the Milan that is here today, you can’t leave’.

“So I left for Milan, Paolo was unsure whether to stay or not, I was happy to return to the club that I love deeply. I wasn’t born a Milan fan, but I became one. This club has something different compared to all the clubs I’ve known and I say this not because I played there, but because it’s true.

“I arrived, I realised that the whole team had to be changed and in fact in six months we changed 13 players. It was clear that we weren’t complete, in fact after the transfer market I said in an interview that children can’t play alone. And in the club they were pretty p*ssed off.

“But I had to say it because it was right like this, they couldn’t grow alone and in fact in January we took Kjaer and Ibrahimovic, two fundamental additions for the whole journey towards the Scudetto. I leave two months later for the reasons that Milan fans know.

“Without those two, especially without Ibrahimovic, nothing would have been created of that Milan that is moving towards the scudetto and also towards an identity. That Pioli, despite many things I didn’t agree with, managed to instil.”

Is there a player from that year that you remember with pride, because you left your mark?

“There was an agreement with Paolo: he had more to say about the defenders. We did it together, we succeeded because there was too much respect between us. Sometimes I liked some defenders, who for Paolo were a disaster.

“Instead on the tactical framework, I who played as a midfielder in all systems, understood certain dynamics better than Paolo. In the end we chose the players together, there was never a player taken without the other not agreeing.

“Maybe the Saelemaekers operation was nice, I did pretty much everything myself: a 6 million operation, then became 8 and someone will have to explain it maybe one day.

“I have to say, not to be inelegant, that I did some very strange things with Furlani in the sense that we had to convince Gordon Singer to leave us at least a little money from the sale of Suso and Piatek.”

When did you notice something is wrong?

“From the beginning. Already with Paolo that time at home when they told me the idea of ​​how it works I said to myself: ‘So we have to fight against our owners for the good of Milan’. And Paolo says to me: ‘More or less’.

“It’s not that I didn’t know before joining that certain cultures or certain non-cultures wouldn’t be a problem for us in our work. I accepted it as a very big challenge, for me it ended soon but I would do it all again because it had to be done.

“Already in August they took away my power of signature without telling me, strangely. To all those who want to know how things went I say, read Paolo Maldini’s interview in ‘La Repubblica’: that is the sacrosanct truth.

“Then there are many ugly details, but let’s not burden people with so many small useless stories and ridiculous nastiness and absurdly placed limits. They had put a certain Endrick there who I don’t know what he understands about football who had to endorse what we did like a technical controller.

“Even if he stayed for a few months I am proud of what we have done. It was demonstrated not with my work, but with Paolo and Ricky who were very good despite the difficulties in creating a great path and then we won the title.

“I had signed a three-year contract and it had to be: the first of cleaning things up, the second of stability and the third of competitiveness. In all the activities in the world it takes three years, imagine in a club like Milan: it’s the minimum.

“But after three months they almost delegitimised us with an ‘ambush’ as ​​Paolo called it. But that’s how it works, the fund works like this: if I buy at 10 tomorrow it must be worth 15, there’s no logic, they are not football people. It’s not meanness, it’s that they don’t understand football.”

In your interview from February 2020 there are three key concepts: ambition, Milanismo and Italianness…

“I spoke about ‘de-Milanisation’, that was the fear. And it was clear that they wanted to make people lose that strength of wanting to belong. Because it is too big an emotion for someone who wants to control things differently. ‘Sempre Milan’: what the f*** does that mean?

“The whole world knows what Milan is, they even put ‘Sempre Milan’ on the bus. Please… Obviously it annoys, it flattens, it almost makes you become a robot. The idea is that, that the fans become customers, the players become assets. And so on, this is their way.”

You were fired for just cause. How did it end?

“In the end, just cause does not exist, it has been demonstrated. In the second degree, the part that Milan had to pay me for reputational reasons was removed, let’s say. But just cause, which is the most important thing for me personally, does not exist. Now we still have to meet to close it in peace.”

Some at Milan – when talking about the signings – tended to attribute certain operations to Moncada to discredit you and Maldini. What was your relationship with Moncada?

“He is an excellent scout, an excellent chief scout. But all the scout offices in the world know the same players. Maybe it happens that one gets to this one or that one, but for Leao he knew the whole world. It was important to understand if Leao could change certain attitudes to play for Milan.

“And Moncada is an excellent scout or chief scout, but after that we chose the players. He introduced them to you and never went into the merits, even elegantly. Because it’s not his, what does he know about what it means to play at San Siro or not?

“I think we have shown that we understand who could and who couldn’t. In the end it’s not that he made a mistake with the purchases, but they are things to denigrate the strength of Paolo’s work, given that he stayed all these years, while I stayed seven months.

“But where that revolution was made where the foundations were laid for what was the team that won the Scudetto.”

Are there any players that you and Maldini wanted to sign and were prevented from doing so?

“Personally, I went to close Dani Olmo. They didn’t want to do it, it was January 2020. It was all agreed, maybe we had to raise a bit, but it was a deal worth €18m plus €2m. The boy wasn’t even asking for too much but then we had to pay something more and in the end I didn’t get any response, so it was clear that it was a no.

“Then we also had Szoboszlai, it was all agreed: 20 million, his clause with Salzburg. There too, it was denied and I said to myself: ‘What the hell is this?’ then I tried to see them and they didn’t want to see us for two months and so I had to do what I did.

“For some it came suddenly, the thing, but instead it wasn’t sudden. But I couldn’t say things publicly every day or push to meet us for a clarification that never came. We agreed that everything we sold would be reinvested: so there were almost 50 million from Suso and Piatek, these two (Olmo and Szoboszlai) would come from those two.

“I wasn’t sure about Olmo at the beginning because he had a rather strange position on the pitch, his ideal was behind the striker but our idea of ​​the game was 4-3-3 but also 4-2-3-1 which we then saw, in that case it was ideal to have him play over there because Calhanoglu couldn’t do it.

“He’s a playmaker and an 8, but not a 10. Because he doesn’t do one-on-ones and he doesn’t have speed. In fact in the end with Brahim Diaz in that position more was done. Szoboszlai was in Innsbruck, Paolo didn’t go because he was afraid they would recognise him. He’s an icon, wherever you go they recognise him. So Ricky and I went with Szoboszlai’s father.

“We had closed the deal, the boy wanted to come immediately: denied. I had to tell him: ‘Look, let’s see about the summer’. He was very disappointed, he wanted to come to Milan immediately.

“He’s not a great player, but an excellent player. Olmo potentially was. Szoboszlai in my head was an 8 and in the long run he can become a great playmaker.”

Maldini was sacked in the end…

“A shameful page, done in a shameful way. Indecent, unacceptable and I could say a thousand other bad things. Above all, inexplicable even for them. For them Paolo represented the last obstacle to do what they wanted. And the Tonali thing had a big impact, Paolo would never have let him go.

“We are looking at a difference of 70 million, I don’t know how much specifically. A lot of money but that should never have come to Milan because Tonali shouldn’t have left Milan. Because the boy is a Milan fan. When we contacted them he told me he would never go to Juventus and Inter.

“Paolo and Ricky signed him at a super price for a player like that. In the first year he was stiffened by his love for Milan, by his respect for the stadium and many asked themselves questions. My dad told me: ‘Look, he’s afraid of playing’.

“It was true, but given his potential he needed a year to get used to it and breathe freely. Before he wasn’t free, he was too much of a Milan fan. Leaving a symbol like this, then after the title, after everything he did and how he did it.”