Do we like them?

Do we like Paolo Maldini?

Our score: 7 out of 10. Nothing harmful found and a clean-looking record, but I couldn't open enough pages to show much real good beyond football.

Maldini is Italian football royalty: the AC Milan one-club man whose name still headlines every story he touches. When Reuters reported his federation job in July, the headline writers reached for words like legend and icon, which tells you how he is seen at home.

His post-playing career has been rockier than his playing days. In June 2023 Milan's owners removed him as technical director, a decision that drew plenty of criticism from fans and former Milan figures.

The latest saga is a classic football-politics stoush. Reuters reported, citing Sky Sport Italia, that Maldini and Leonardo resigned from their federation roles after the plan to make Pirlo the national coach fell apart. Reports said federation president Giovanni Malagò opposed the pick, and the federation hadn't immediately responded. It's a fight about a coach, not about anyone's rights.

On the good-person side, a tax case in the 2010s ended with him acquitted at first instance in February 2013, when he called the trial absurd. I couldn't find the appeal result, so treat that as a gap. Charity work, like past UNICEF links, turned up only in snippets I couldn't properly check, so I'm not leaning on it.