{"id":613110,"date":"2022-05-27T11:16:01","date_gmt":"2022-05-27T15:16:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=613110"},"modified":"2022-05-27T11:16:01","modified_gmt":"2022-05-27T15:16:01","slug":"ac-milan-rafael-leaos-future-untouchable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/05\/27\/ac-milan-rafael-leaos-future-untouchable\/","title":{"rendered":"AC Milan Director Comments on Rafael Le\u00e3o\u2019s Future"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/05\/24\/fikayo-tomori-contract-extension-ac-milan\/\" target=\"_self\">AC Milan<\/a> director, Paolo Maldini, has commented on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FabrizioRomano\/status\/1529961004636987396\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">forward Rafael Leao&#8217;s future<\/a>, stating: \u201cWe consider Rafael Le\u00e3o untouchable. He is not for sale\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The statement follows rumoured interest in the 22-year-old from both <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/05\/21\/kylian-mbappe-staying-paris-saint-germain\/\" target=\"_self\">Paris Saint-Germain<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/05\/26\/real-madrid-vinicius-junior-amid-interest\/\" target=\"_self\">Real Madrid<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Club Director Paolo Maldini Addresses Rafael Le\u00e3o\u2019s Future at AC Milan<\/h2>\n<h3><b>Serie A&#8217;s Best Player<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Portugal international is fresh off receiving the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2022\/05\/24\/rafael-leao-serie-a-best-player\/\" target=\"_self\">Serie A Best Player award<\/a> for the 2021\/22 season, which saw Le\u00e3o score 11 goals and contribute with ten assists in 34 appearances.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lining up primarily as a left-winger this season, Le\u00e3o was directly involved in 21 goal contributions as he helped AC Milan clinch their first <em>Scudetto<\/em> in 11 years. Le\u00e3o even chipped in with three assists on the final day of the season as they beat Sassuolo 3-0 to finish top of Serie A.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There\u2019s no denying that Le\u00e3o is one of the brightest young talents in world football and is fresh off a season where he managed to take his game to another level. The future is bright for the young winger, however, it\u2019s not clear whether that future will be in Milan or elsewhere.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>Could Real Madrid or PSG Make a Move?<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Both Real Madrid and PSG are rumoured to be interested in the 22-year-old winger, however, with Maldini\u2019s comments, it appears that AC Milan are not willing to come to the negotiating table.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Le\u00e3o\u2019s contract reportedly contains a <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FabrizioRomano\/status\/1530070294773125120\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u20ac150 million release clause.<\/a> However, activating this would be quite the statement, even from a club such as PSG. AC Milan are looking to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FabrizioRomano\/status\/1498270270108356614\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">agree to a new contract<\/a> with Le\u00e3o, which would surely increase the release clause for the players&#8217; impressive campaign.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With Real Madrid missing out on Kylian Mbappe, who stayed at PSG, the Champions League finalists may be looking towards other attacking options. Le\u00e3o has shown he is capable of playing to a very high level in one of Europe\u2019s top-four leagues so it\u2019s understandable that Real Madrid would be interested. However, early signs suggest that they are not looking to discuss a deal for their player at the moment. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"RSlXuuadR3ZeOkejdByYeg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1399082396\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'RSlXuuadR3ZeOkejdByYeg',sig:'i6T6TovOr677p7xKGyAcq6nuQfGd3zeA6s1WnrzMDcA=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1399082396',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AC Milan director, Paolo Maldini, has commented on forward Rafael Leao&#8217;s future, stating: \u201cWe consider Rafael Le\u00e3o untouchable. He is not for sale\u201d.\u00a0 The statement follows rumoured interest in the 22-year-old from both Paris Saint-Germain and Real Madrid. Club Director Paolo Maldini Addresses Rafael Le\u00e3o\u2019s Future at AC Milan Serie A&#8217;s Best Player The Portugal [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4148,"featured_media":613128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1363,7188,5],"tags":[4017],"class_list":["post-613110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ac-milan","category-rumours","category-serie-a","tag-rafael-leao"],"modified_by":"Dale Ventham, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}