A young Italian football star was convicted of gambling addiction: the Juventus player bet that he would receive a yellow card

Nico­lo Fagi­oli will not return to the field for a long time and will be treat­ed for gam­bling addic­tion.

A series of scan­dals con­tin­ues in the Juven­tus foot­ball team: first, the club was expelled from Euro­pean com­pe­ti­tion for finan­cial fraud, then Paul Pog­ba failed a dop­ing test. Now the young tal­ent of Juven­tus has stum­bled — Nico­lo Fagi­oli has been sus­pend­ed from games for bet­ting on his own match.

What happened to Nicolo Fagioli?

Juven­tus mid­field­er Nico­lo Fagi­oli, 22, has been sus­pend­ed for sev­en months for gam­bling, which is pro­hib­it­ed for active ath­letes under Ital­ian law.

The inves­ti­ga­tion found that the foot­ball play­er placed a bet on the match of the 36th round of the 2022/23 Ital­ian Cham­pi­onship against Saler­ni­tana. He bet that he would receive a yel­low card and com­mit­ted a fla­grant foul in the 94th minute.

The pun­ish­ment could have been more severe — ini­tial­ly the foot­baller faced a sus­pen­sion of at least three years. Fagi­oli was saved by the fact that he admit­ted guilt, coop­er­at­ed with author­i­ties and agreed to treat­ment for gam­bling addic­tion. Even his agent admit­ted there was a prob­lem. As a result, the pros­e­cu­tor’s office com­mut­ed the pun­ish­ment to sev­en months of sus­pen­sion from foot­ball.

“The Fed­er­al Pros­e­cu­tor has reached an agree­ment with the play­er Nico­lo Fagi­oli, after which he will be pun­ished by a ban of 12 months, five of which will be replaced by alter­na­tive sanc­tions and a fine of 12,500 euros,” the state­ment said.

Let us remind you that Fagi­oli has been in the Juven­tus sys­tem since 2015, and is now con­sid­ered one of the main young tal­ents. He made his debut as a starter in 2021, played for the Ital­ian nation­al team, and this sea­son par­tic­i­pat­ed in six Juven­tus match­es, pro­vid­ing one assist.

Who else could be punished?

At the same time, Fagi­oli is not the only one involved in the scan­dal. Also under inves­ti­ga­tion as part of an inves­ti­ga­tion by the Turin pros­e­cu­tor’s office into ille­gal bet­ting are San­dro Tonali and Nico­lo Zan­io­lo.

They are yet to learn their fate, as the inves­ti­ga­tion against the cou­ple is not at such an advanced stage as in the case of Fagi­oli.

Nicolo Zaniolo could also be punished

The famous Ital­ian coach Car­lo Ancelot­ti spoke about gam­bling addic­tion among the nation­al team play­ers:

“It was a blun­der, these play­ers have prob­lems, they need to be treat­ed. Gam­bling addic­tion is a dis­ease. “At the same time, I am sure that this is the fault of indi­vid­ual play­ers, and not the whole of Ital­ian foot­ball — that would be an exag­ger­a­tion.”