Former AC Milan scouting chief Ariedo Braida says the club will miss Paolo Maldini.

Maldini was sacked as technical director at the end of last season.

Braida told TMW: “A character like Maldini certainly had considerable weight within the club and in the locker room. It is clear and evident that, when the players arrive and find themselves in front of a champion of this type… Chapeau, hats off. Anyone arriving from another part of Europe thinks: 'I am faced with a player to whom I owe enormous respect because he wrote the history of Milan these last 30 years and before that it was his father'.

"We are faced with a very important character within the club. In life we always say: 'When a pope dies, another one is made'. But Maldini is a person of depth for what he has represented. Everyone can think of it as he wants, but he was the story of Milan."