Former Albanian diplomat Paskal Milo was invited to an “Interview” with Mirela Milori on Euronews Albania this Sunday, where he shared some of the most special moments of his political career, but also about the obstacles in his life, one of which is football.
Milo said that this has been his greatest passion that has followed him since childhood, but that he abandoned it to follow another path, that of a journalist and then a politician. However, if he were to meet himself at 20 years old, he said that he would tell him to follow his passion for football, as he would have had an easier and perhaps richer life.
“Follow the path that I followed. Of course, you have had obstacles along the way and you may not have overcome them. But in a special way, I would tell him. If you wanted an easy life and if you were 20 years old today, continue your passion for football, because you would have become a very famous and rich footballer today. I left football dramatically at my peak, because I was appointed a journalist at “Zërin i Popullit”. I left it with great pain, I didn’t go to the stadium for a year because I couldn’t watch my friends play. Until recently, I played regularly. It was a passion of my youth. The sports bag and books coexisted with me both in high school and in university until I was appointed”, said Paskal Milo.
Asked what he would tell himself if he met him at 95, the former minister replied:
“Close your accounts as soon as possible, leave what you still lack to leave to this world”.
He said that one of the most beautiful memories of his political career is the time when he was Albania’s foreign minister, a time when he felt appreciated by the then US president Bill Clinton, who mentioned him in documents by calling him by name.
“I have respect for the then president of the United States of America, Bill Clinton. He was a simple man. I was the Foreign Minister of a small country that he might not have considered at all, because we are a small country.
But he was so great in his education and culture and so valued even small contributions, in such complicated situations as the conflict in Kosovo, that he met me, knew me and spoke to me by name and mentioned me in documents by name. For me it is a special pleasure that a US president would call me by name and leave a mark in his documents by mentioning me by name”, said Paskal Milo.
