Former chief scout reveals how close Milan were to signing Pogba: “A bit of a protest” | OneFootball

Paul Pogba was close to joining AC Milan before he ended up at Juventus, former director Mauro Bianchessi has revealed.

Pogba’s enigmatic career has seen him play for Manchester United twice and Juventus twice. He joined the academy of the former in 2009 from Le Havre but departed for Turin in 2012, spending four years there before going back to Old Trafford. Then, in 2022, he returned to Juve where he is still currently under contract.

A number of different clubs have been named as being in the hunt to sign him from United around 15 years ago when he was starring in the academy but the first team was too strong to offer him a pathway, and Milan were among them.

Mauro Bianchessi – the former AC Milan chief scout who currently occupies the same role with the Monza Youth Sector – was interviewed by LaPresse and he told an anecdote about Pogba.

“One day Galliani called me into the office and said ‘find a champion who doesn’t cost much for the first team’. I toured Europe for three weeks and came back to him telling him ‘there’s this guy at Manchester who doesn’t play, he plays in the second team and out of position and for me he’s a great champion’. I still have the report, it ended with ‘he’s a world-class player’,” he said (via MilanNews).

“The agent was Mino Raiola, the player was Paul Pogba. Unfortunately at that time nothing was done, there was a bit of a protest because too much money was given to the agents. Eight months later Juventus signed him for five million, under the conditions that Raiola had told us to bring him to us. But before them there was us.”