Lazio President Claudio Lotito says he hopes the recent gambling scandal in Serie A does not represent the reality. A number of young players have been implicated in alleged illegal betting activity and could face lengthy bans from football, if found guilty. Speaking about the situation at the Football Medicine Congress held today at the Stadio Olimpico, Lotito gave his assessment of the situation, saying its better to wait before weighing in on the players, while also condemning paparazzo Fabrizio Corona for his actions in the scandal:
“No chaos, we must remain with a cold mind and feet firmly. Let’s see what are the true, current, formal and substantial elements that emerge from the maps and the judicial authority, and on the basis of these we will make our considerations. Are we talking about 40 players involved? The Latins distinguished between “dicunt,” they say, and “dicitur,” they say, spoken. Going to criminalize a situation in advance for me is wrong, let’s see what we’re talking about. If we take a player who plays videopoker it’s one thing, if he plays something else, it’s another.”
“Should the players be more followed by companies or agents? Lazio takes care not only of the athlete but the human being at 360 degrees, to ensure that he is a spokesman of value aspects, not only of material sporting results. Then unfortunately it depends on people: in a family with four children, maybe three behave in a certain way and one unfortunately does not. I hope that as far as we are concerned, my players are out of the mechanism of diversion of the use of their profession for this type of activity.”
“It’s useless for us to wrap our heads before we break it, let’s see before what we’re talking about. I hope that this situation does not represent reality. As a man of the institutions, I have as a reference the police and the judiciary, not the private sector (Fabrizio Corona, ed), which sends around news. Am I interested in Corona’s intervention by Nunzia De Girolamo on TV? No, I am interested in the intervention of the judiciary. Who is Corona?!”
“We are making a fuss without having the knowledge of the extent of the matter. We have to wait for the results of the investigation, otherwise we are criminalizing a number of people, some of whom have perhaps adopted a behavior not in line with the principles of loyalty, probity and foresight, and others have adopted a system of superficiality.”
“The basis of an athlete, there is a deontology that must be respected. Betting on football is a crime, but even going to bet is not uplifting, because you transmit the message of a person who has an addiction, in fact there is playfulness. Before criminalizing, let’s see what we’re talking about, otherwise they’re words to the wind.”
