La Gazzetta dello Sport have published extracts of Nicolo Fagioli’s interrogation with the Turin Prosecutor’s Office, where he admits to being in debt following a gambling addiction. The youngster agreed to a plea deal that saw his sentence reduced to a seven-month ban from football.
Gazzetta have shared parts of Fagioli’s interview this morning:
“The worst period was between March and April 2023. In Sassuolo-Juve I made a technical error and was replaced. On the way out I cried about the debts.
“In September 2022 it was €250,000, then it had reached €2.7 million. The debt haunted me and the money I owed kept increasing. There was no way out. I’ll break your legs, they told me.”
“The first bets I made were on tennis events, then on football. I played on Torino-Milan on October 30, 2022: I bet on a draw or a win for Milan. I lost because it ended 2-1 for Torino. But also in the Champions League on Inter-Real Madrid. But I never bet on Cremonese or Juventus matches,” he explains.
“A close friend in the national Under-21 team training camp,” with all the clues leading to Sandro Tonali “suggested I play on an illegal site. I saw him playing and asked for information. He told me I could do it too because there was no trace of betting.” “I remember some of the names of these sites,” Fagioli added, “two were called Icebet and Betart but they changed their names each time.
Fagioli often settled his debts “with watches. I paid by bank transfer, or the owners of the platforms would pick them up at a jewelry store in Milan. I also took loans from teammate, for example Gatti and Dragusin, telling them I needed them to buy watches.” Fagioli swears, however, that he never told anyone about the problem in the locker room: “Only my mom and a few non-footballer friends knew.” Not Juventus: “I had to renew my contract and I was afraid that news like this would prevent it.”
