Totti set to take on new role at Roma
ROME — Roma icon Francesco Totti will retire at the end of the season when the 40-year-old’s contract expires, the club’s new sporting director Monchi said on Wednesday.
“I want him here right by my side. He is Roma. He can teach me what Roma is,” said Monchi, adding the revered captain will remain with the club in a management position.
“There is an agreement in place. This is his last season, but then he will continue in management.”
“I want Totti to explain to me what Roma is, to make me understand what he knows,” added the Spaniard, who won credit for his sports director role at Sevilla, which won the Europa League in 2014, 2015 and 2016.
Striker Totti has played his entire pro career at Roma since debuting in 1993 and is a hugely popular figure.
Roma coach Luciano Spalletti had a series of run-ins with Totti last season, but the player responded with a string of key goals and eventually was offered another 12-month contract last summer.
Asked how he felt after his last derby, a loss to Lazio last Sunday, Totti said: “Others see this is as my last derby, but I don’t.”
The former World Cup winner has yet to make any official announcement about ending his playing career, but a club spokesperson said there was “nothing new or different” to add to what Monchi said.
While the Spaniard may have hastened Totti’s departure, Roma had already announced there would be a six-year contract as a club director ready to be signed once he ends his playing career.
It appears overwhelmingly that Totti, a World Cup winner with Italy in 2006, could make his farewell bow when Roma hosts Genoa in its last game of the season on May 28 — one final chance for the veteran to bid goodbye to the Stadio Olimpico faithful.
Totti’s 616 Serie A appearances are third most all-time, while his 250 goals in Italy’s top flight are second only to the great Silvio Piola’s record of 274.
Totti was a runner-up with Italy at Euro 2000, a year before lifting his only Serie A title with Roma — which is heading for a ninth runner-up finish, this time to Juventus, since its last league triumph.