Juventus midfielder Nicoló Fagioli (22), who has been banned for seven months for his part in the gambling scandal in Italy, has made a number of shocking revelations in his interrogation with the prosecutor of the Italian Football Federation. For example, he was seriously threatened by the owners of illegal gambling sites and at one point he was so deeply in debt that he had to borrow money from his teammates.
In August, the Italian gossip journalist Fabrizio Corona was the first to reveal that Fagioli would gamble illegally, after which the former Cremonese player turned himself in to the police. He examined his phone, among other things, after which the ball started rolling much further in October. For example, international players Sandro Tonali and Nicoló Zaniolo were interrogated last week at the national team’s training camp, after which the football association decided to send the pair back to their respective employers, Newcastle United and Aston Villa, before the international matches with Malta and England.
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Fagioli has now been punished with a seven-month suspension. Multiple Italian media, including La Gazzetta dello Sport, have obtained the transcripts of his interrogation and are publishing some shocking details from them. The midfielder reveals that Tonali, with whom he played at Young Italy, pointed out the illegal gambling sites to him. “In September 2022, I now had a debt of 250 thousand euros and the owners of the illegal platforms started to put pressure on me,” Fagioli is quoted as saying. “They said they would break my legs, I was in so much debt that even if I won I wouldn’t receive anything.” Because things then went from bad to worse, the debt increased more than tenfold in a short time and rose to 2.7 million euros.
To pay off his creditors, Fagioli borrowed money from several teammates; he mentions Federico Gatti and Radu Dragusin (now a Genoa player) by name. In addition, he sometimes paid off debts with luxury watches, which he bought in Milan. The debts began to weigh more and more heavily on him: “The low point was between March and April 2023, when I was so afraid that I made a mistake during the Sassuolo – Juventus match and was substituted. As soon as I sat on the bench I started crying and thinking about my debts and my gambling problem,” says Fagioli. Eventually, Fagioli bet on all the sports matches he saw, including football matches at all Italian professional levels. Yet he kept himself to one rule; he swears that he never bet on matches of Juventus or Cremonese, the clubs he himself serves and serves. He is now being treated for his gambling problem.
