Fagioli reveals when Tonali told him about illegal betting app

During an interrogation with the FIGC Prosecutor last month, Juventus midfielder Nicolò Fagioli revealed that Sandro Tonali had explained to him how to use an app for illegal betting while on international duty with Italy U21 in 2021.

Tuttosport newspaper published the documents of Fagioli’s interview with the FIGC Prosecutor Giuseppe Chiné in September 2023.

Fagioli admitted he accumulated debts and had been threatened by owners of illegal betting platforms to whom he owed money. Fagioli said he started gambling because he had “a lot of free time.”

“We trained in the morning and I gambled in the afternoon to kill boredom and experience the thrill,” he admitted.

He also revealed that Newcastle midfielder Tonali had suggested to him an app to place illegal bets.

Fagioli said it happened in 2021 while they were on international duty with Italy U21. “I watched him [Tonali] play and asked him what he was doing,” said Fagioli.

“He said I could do it too because it would leave no trace, so he made me register with my account. I placed my first bets on tennis and then football. I used other illegal platforms too, I don’t remember all names because they kept changing every month.”

During the interrogation, Fagioli referred to Tonali as a “close friend.”

“I started in the summer of 2021 when I was playing with Italy U21 at Tirrenia. I never asked myself if a platform was legal or illegal,” explained the Juventus midfielder.

“The difference was that I could play without paying in advance through illegal platforms. It wanted to kill time. I mainly gambled on tennis for a year, then, from January 2022, I was in a stress condition because I had accumulated debts and from September of the same year, I started with football, betting big sums trying to recover.”

Fagioli also said he had accumulated so much debt that he had to borrow money from some of his Juventus teammates, who were unaware of his problems.

Fagioli has been suspended for seven months, while Tonali was heard by the Turin and FIGC Prosecutors earlier this week. The Newcastle midfielder seems more in trouble than his compatriot, as he allegedly gambled on Milan games while under contract with the Rossoneri.