Speaking as part of his appearance on the Presidents Podcast, AS Monaco Vice President Oleg Petrov discussed the future of Benoît Badiashile and why he ended up being a player who has a hot topic of conversation at board level this summer.

“The player was bankable indeed and it was indeed Niko (who wanted the player to stay). Given the complexity of the summertime, COVID and all the of the problems that we all came through, selling a player at a good valuation would never hurt the financial books of the club of course. But then it was Niko’s specific position that this player should stay – he is a great talent, he will perform and then maybe one day he can have by far a better career in one of the best clubs and strongly insisted on this. Paul of course was of the same position, so we let Benoît to stay and play. He is now playing alongside Axel (Disasi), they mostly start all of the games, the two central defenders. Very solid, very young, playing from 18 years for the 1st team at Monaco, also playing in the Espoirs team for France. Very good technically, very humble, very fast, gives a lot of comforts when he plays but still very young. For a player of his age, playing all the games as a starter, it is a huge opportunity for him to develop into a player of the highest calibre. He is a very hard worker so we are very happy to have him.”

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