Former Fiorentina defender Mauro Bressan is released from the betting investigation, “but nobody will want me now. They judge me as guilty.”
Bressan was one of several figures arrested in the match-fixing scandal, but has been released and effectively cleared after initial interviews with police.
“I must admit when they knocked on the door on June 1, I had no idea what was going on,” he told Tuttosport.
Former Fiorentina defender Mauro Bressan is released from the betting investigation, “but nobody will want me now. They judge me as guilty.”
Bressan was one of several figures arrested in the match-fixing scandal, but has been released and effectively cleared after initial interviews with police.
“I must admit when they knocked on the door on June 1, I had no idea what was going on,” he told Tuttosport.
“I made a few bets on a weekend, but it was a fun game with friends, above all Stefano Bettarini. We'd meet up on Monday and see how many we'd got right, then make fun of each other, the way friends do.
“Antonio Bellavista gave us the ‘heads up' on some games, but most of the time he was wrong and just messing about.
“Perhaps the initial nightmare of this investigation is over for me, but over the past few days mud has been hurled at my name.
“The problem is that now I am free, that mud sticks. Nobody ever assumed my innocence until proven guilty. Who knows if it will ever clear up entirely?
“I had just finished a course to become a director of sport and had interviews with three or four clubs to begin that work. Who will want me now? Even if I cleared my name, people still look at me as if I'm guilty. That's the worst part.”
Not only has the media coverage of this investigation been particularly vicious to Bressan, but newspapers even named players who were never part of the police proceedings.
The likes of Francesco Totti, Daniele De Rossi and Christian Vieri all threatened legal action when linked to this scandal by the papers without a shred of evidence.