Andrea Pirlo has said he is no longer a candidate to coach the Italian national side following days of controversy over his ties to a Russian betting company.
The report indicates that andrea Pirlo has stated he is no longer a candidate to coach the Italian national side following days of controversy over his ties to a Russian betting company.
It further notes that his appointment as Italy’s next head coach had not been confirmed by the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) yet was being treated as all but certain.
But over the weekend several Italian politicians criticised the FIGC’s choice, noting that Pirlo, 47, had taken up a role as global ambassador for Russia’s Fonbet last October.
Hours later, Italian football was plunged further into crisis as it was reported by Sky Sport Italia that two other senior figures in the FIGC, Paolo Maldini and Leonardo, had decided to resign.
Maldini was appointed FIGC technical director just over two weeks ago.
He and ex-Brazilian international Leonardo, his adviser and former AC Milan teammate, had been tasked with finding a new head coach and rebuilding the team after three successive failures to qualify for the World Cup.
It comes after Pirlo is no longer being considered for head coach over his ties to betting company Fonbet, which has sponsored several sporting events involving veterans of Moscow’s war in Ukraine and has organised events in Russia at which Pirlo appeared alongside pro-Kremlin figures.
“Anyone who is or has been promoting Russia after 2022 should not hold national office,” stated Carlo Calenda of the centrist Azione party.
“After learning last night that I am no longer a candidate for the Italian national team, I feel it is my duty to clarify some aspects,” Pirlo, a former Internazionale, Juventus, AC Milan and Azzurri midfielder, wrote in an Instagram post on Monday morning.
“Over the last few days I watched, with great bitterness, the debate that swirled around my name,” he said, adding that any “professional collaboration” he undertook in his capacity as coach for United FC in Dubai “was exclusively of a commercial and sporting nature”.
“To assign a political meaning to that collaboration means ascribing to me beliefs which I have never expressed and that do not belong to me,” Pirlo wrote.
Pina Picierno, a vice-president of the European Parliament, stated at the weekend that Italian football “desperately needed a cultural, ethical and managerial revolution” but that the choice of Pirlo “goes in the exact opposite direction”.
In contrast, Pirlo was offered support by the Russian ambassador in Rome, Aleksey Paramonov, who stated that it was “saddening” to note that, “despite [Pirlo’s] extraordinary contribution to world sport and to Italy’s image around the world, in your own country, you are now being ostracised”.
Scrutiny of Pirlo’s ties to Fonbet and Russia intensified last spring, when he took part in a Fonbet event held in Moscow, where he and former teammate Marco Materazzi signed autographs at Luzhniki Stadium.
