Italy Pirlo hire off after Russian betting firm links revealed
Italy’s plans to name Andrea Pirlo manager of their national football team have been scrapped after his links with a Russian betting firm were criticised by politicians.
Pirlo, the 47-year-old manager of Dubai United, has been a global ambassador for Fonbet since October and was all but confirmed for the Italy job despite no official notice from the federation.
A number of politicians had criticised the Italian Football Federation’s (FIGC) apparent choice of manager with centrist Carlo Calenda stating that “anyone who is or has been promoting Russia after 2022 should not hold national office”.
Announcing the end of his candidacy “with great bitterness”, Pirlo said that 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 out of Italy selection
The former Juventus, AC Milan, Inter and Italy midfielder would have been tasked with turning around his country’s dire World Cup qualification record, with the Azzurri unable to reach the tournament since 2014 and failing to get out of the group in the two tournaments after they won their fourth title in 2006.
The U-turn over Pirlo’s hiring comes amid a number of high-profile exits following Italy’s failure to reach the World Cup. Former head coach Gennaro Gattuso resigned alongside FIGC president Gabriele Gravina in April, while general manager Gianluigi Buffon stepped down too.
Pirlo took part in a Fonbet event held in Moscow last year which saw a nationalist pro-Kremlin music star – Shaman – perform. The firm has links to industrialist Alexander Karmanov and real estate developer Alexander Udodov, and is a sponsor for state-backed sports organisations such as the Russian national football team and the Kontinental Hockey League.
“It doesn’t matter whether Pirlo is pro-Russian or not. What matters is what he chose to do: lend, freely and repeatedly, his own prestige to an operation normalising Putin’s regime, participating in initiatives exploited by Kremlin propaganda while Ukraine was being bombed,” Pina Picierno, vice-president of the European parliament, wrote on social media.
Former Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola had held talks about taking the position at the helm of the team that won the Euros in 2021.