Italy have ended a chaotic 16-day search for a new head coach by appointing Roberto Mancini for a second spell in charge, but the decision has come at the cost of a major boardroom rupture inside the Italian Football Federation (FIGC).
According to BBC Sport, technical director Paolo Maldini and special adviser Leonardo resigned after less than a month in their roles, following a string of failed managerial approaches and a disagreement with FIGC president Giovanni Malagò over the direction of the appointment.
Malagò insisted the split was amicable, but his explanation underlined how quickly the federation’s attempted “hard reset” has been destabilised.
“It was a calm and consensual decision to go our separate ways,”Malagò said.
“I needed someone who could share my vision of who would be the Italy coach. This shared vision on Mancini was not present with Maldini.”
How Italy’s planned reset unravelled
The BBC report frames the past few weeks as an attempted rebuild after another major sporting failure: Italy’s defeat by Bosnia-Herzegovina in the final qualifying play-off in March, which meant the Azzurri missed a third consecutive World Cup. That result was followed by the resignation of head coach Gennaro Gattuso.
In the fallout, prominent voices called for structural reform. Former defender Franco Baresi, quoted by BBC Sport, argued that Italian football needed a collective reckoning, saying:
“The whole of Italian football must do a mea culpa, because the results of the last 20 years are there for everyone to see, with the isolated exception of the Euro 2020 triumph.”
Leadership change followed. The BBC report states FIGC president Gabriele Gravina resigned alongside Gianluigi Buffon, who had been Italy’s head of delegation, and that Malagò was elected president. Malagò then appointed Maldini on 12 July with a broad remit spanning youth development through to the senior side, with his first task to identify the next national-team coach.
Instead of a smooth transition, the recruitment process became the story. BBC Sport reports that Maldini and Leonardo first explored Pep Guardiola, then Carlo Ancelotti, before turning to Andrea Pirlo, who was ultimately ruled out by FIGC superiors amid public and political outcry over his promotional work for a Russian betting company, including sponsored trips to Moscow after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Why Mancini is both a solution and a risk
Mancini’s return closes the immediate vacancy, but it also raises the central question posed by the BBC: can Italian football truly “reset” if the reset is delivered through internal conflict and a return to a familiar face?
From a purely footballing point of view, Mancini offers a clear advantage: he is a proven international coach with an established methodology and the credibility to command a dressing room in turbulent circumstances. The Guardian also reported on Tuesday that Mancini is returning for a second spell and that Claudio Ranieri has been named technical director, replacing Maldini in the overseeing role (The Guardian).
But the political context matters. BBC Sport makes clear that Malagò and Maldini did not share a “vision” on Mancini, and that disconnect has already cost the federation two high-profile appointments. In a system trying to build long-term coherence from youth football to the senior team, that kind of split at the top can be as damaging as any tactical problem on the pitch.
The immediate next steps, then, are not only about Mancini naming a squad or picking a formation; they are about governance. If Ranieri is now the technical director, the working relationship between him and Malagò will shape whether Italy can stabilise decision-making and avoid repeating the same cycle of short-term fixes that has marked recent years.
Infographic-style facts block
Duration of Maldini and Leonardo’s FIGC roles: 16 days (BBC Sport)
FIGC president: Giovanni Malagò (BBC Sport)
New Italy head coach: Roberto Mancini (BBC Sport)
Context: Italy failed to qualify for a third straight World Cup after losing a play-off to Bosnia-Herzegovina (BBC Sport)
Managerial approaches reported: Pep Guardiola (declined), Carlo Ancelotti (not interested), Andrea Pirlo (ruled out by superiors) (BBC Sport)
What happens next for the Azzurri
Italy are no longer in a leadership vacuum, but the BBC’s reporting suggests the federation is still searching for a stable operating model. The question is whether Malagò’s centralised “vision” can coexist with the broader reform agenda that was promised after the latest qualification failure.
In the short term, Mancini’s remit will be to restore clarity and results, while the federation must rebuild trust after a public recruitment process that ended with two resignations. In the medium term, the bigger challenge is aligning the senior national team with a coherent pathway from the youth system—something that was explicitly part of Maldini’s brief before his departure.
For supporters, the hope is that the appointment ends the noise and refocuses attention on football. For the FIGC, the test is harsher: proving that this is more than a headline-grabbing return, and that Italy’s “new era” is built on stable leadership rather than another round of crisis management.
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