Andrea Pirlo has confirmed he is no longer in the running to coach Italy, after days of political backlash over his ambassadorial role with a Russian betting company. The 47-year-old former Juventus and AC Milan midfielder wrote on Instagram on Monday that he “heard last night that I’m no longer the candidate for the Italy national team job”. His appointment had been treated as all but certain, with support from new FIGC technical director Paolo Maldini, but fierce criticism from Italian politicians over his ties to Fonbet – a Russian betting firm that has sponsored events involving veterans of Moscow’s war in Ukraine – has forced a dramatic reversal.
Pirlo, currently head coach of Dubai United, took up the Fonbet role last October. Scrutiny intensified last spring when he appeared at a Fonbet event in Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium alongside former teammate Marco Materazzi and pro-Kremlin pop star Shaman, who has repeatedly expressed support for the invasion of Ukraine. Ukrainian skeleton slider Vladyslav Heraskevych – disqualified from the Winter Olympics for a helmet depicting fellow athletes killed in the war – noted the event coincided with a large Russian attack on Ukraine.
“Andrea Pirlo withdraws from Italy job race after political backlash over his role with Russian betting firm Fonbet.”
On Monday, Pirlo defended the deal as “exclusively of a commercial and sporting nature” linked to his job in the UAE, and insisted 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”. But the damage was done. Carlo Calenda of the centrist Azione party said: “Anyone who is or has been promoting Russia after 2022 should not hold national office.” Pina Picierno, vice-president of the European Parliament, said Italian football “desperately needed a cultural, ethical and managerial revolution” and that the choice of Pirlo “goes in the exact opposite direction”. Ignazio La Russa, head of the Senate and a member of Giorgia Meloni’s party, called Pirlo a “great champion” as a player but described his coaching candidacy as “a leap in the dark”.
The Russian ambassador in Rome, Aleksey Paramonov, offered a contrasting view, saying it was “saddening” that Pirlo was “being ostracized” in his own country despite his “extraordinary contribution to world sport”.
With Pirlo out of the picture, the FIGC is expected to turn to Roberto Mancini or Antonio Conte, both former Italy managers. The federation had previously failed to land Pep Guardiola and Carlo Ancelotti in their search for a successor.