Paolo Maldini’s comments after the second leg against Inter regarding the decision to sign Charles De Ketelaere over Paulo Dybala have caused a bit of a stir.
Maldini is often a mysterious man when it comes to the media and gives little away when he does appear in front of the camera generally, but he lowered his guard after Tuesday’s defeat against Inter and we analysed his most interesting comments.
As our colleagues at SempreMilan.it report, Maldini hinted that the decision to go for De Ketelaere over Dybala was down to ownership policy: “It would have been much easier and much cheaper for us to go to someone like Dybala, but would it been right for our project and shared by the ownership? No.”
According to what our editorial team has learned however, it was Giorgio Furlani – the new CEO of Milan after Ivan Gazidis’ departure – who advocated the signing of Dybala as a possible reinforcement for the attack on a free transfer.
Despite this, the idea of signing the Argentine did not convince Maldini who then preferred to focus on De Ketelaere, negotiating for weeks before finalising a deal worth a total of €35m.
Dybala has 16 goals and 8 assists in 36 games across all competitions this season, while the Belgian has just 1 assists and 0 goals in 38 appearances.
