The Italian Nicolo Fagioli, Juventus player Sanctioned with seven months without playing for making illegal bets, he received threats from the owners of the places where he bet because of his high debts and even asked his teammates for money to pay them off.
“He played compulsively in front of the television in any sporting event he saw, including football… even Serie B and Lega Pro (third category), although never Cremonese or Juventus,” he declared to the prosecutor of the Italian Football Federation (FIGC), Giuseppe Chinèthe Italian media revealed this Wednesday.
(Is VAR the worst enemy of the Colombian National Team? A chilling fact would confirm it)(Children of Shakira and Piqué left school in Miami: this is the strong situation)
Strong declarations
Fagioli’s season is practically sentenced with a 7-month sanction for having bet on football matches, to which is added a therapy of a minimum of 6 months, the obligation to give ten public talks on the subject and the payment of a fine of 12,500 euros.
The player is now in the hands of professionals to overcome his gambling addiction, a problem that took on a new dimension in Italy this Wednesday, when the local media revealed parts of his statement with the FIGC prosecutor.
“At first, a footballer, having a lot of free time, ends up experiencing the excitement of the game to overcome boredom. Over time it becomes an obsession,” he said, according to the aforementioned sources.
“I started betting during the U-21 national team camp and found myself in a state of stress caused by debt. I stopped sleeping. The more time passed, the more I became obsessed with debt. The money I owed kept increasing and I thought about gambling just to try to recover.”he added.
“I will break your legs, they told me”something that forced him to ask teammates for money.
“I asked Gatti (Juventus teammate) for 40,000 euros, but telling him that I needed them to buy a watch and that my accounts were blocked by my mother. Dragusin (from Genoa) lent me 40,000 euros in October 2022,” he confessed.
Fagioli, according to sports newspapers, suffered his worst moment in the recent period between “March and April 2023.”
“During Sassuolo-Juventus I made a technical error and was substituted because I was thinking about my betting debts,” said. “When I was at Cremonese (on loan), my mother advised me to go to SerT (service to overcome addictions) to cure myself, I went there several times,” she noted.
Fagioli pointed to Sandro Tonali, who went this Tuesday to testify before the Turin Prosecutor’s Officeas the partner who opened the doors to the world of betting: “It was Tonali who suggested I play at Icebet and who made me register through an account on the site in question.”
In addition, the footballer spoke of specific amounts bet and his debts, which amount to 3 million euros. “About 110 thousand euros with ‘betar.bet’ and ‘specialibet.bet’, around 1.5 million with bullbet23.com, around 1.3 million with another illegal platform, around 17 thousand euros with a legal one and around of 31 thousand euros with ‘swissbet'”, he acknowledged.
The player, however, came out to defend himself on his social networks. “I thought I would start by apologizing not only to Juventus fans, but to all fans in the world of football and sports for the naive mistake I made,” he posted on his Instagram account.
“Instead, I am forced to start with the garbage that the newspapers and the people just to expose myself with a thousand falsehoods. Or perhaps better, just to gain two more views. I will speak soon,” he said.
(South American eliminatory: how is the next date played? Schedules, matches and TV)
#Terrible #testimony #player #sanctioned #betting #break #legs