Stefano Pioli has insisted that he was ‘absolutely’ unaware of Sandro Tonali’s gambling addiction while he was still at Milan, and believes there is little realistically that the club can do to help Newcastle, who signed the 23-year-old in a big-money move this summer.
Tonali was a topic of major interest during Pioli’s press conference on Tuesday evening, as Milan will face Newcastle at St James’ Park in their final game of the Champions League group stage on Wednesday night.
The former Brescia youth product enjoyed a decent start to life on Tyneside, but was dealt a season-ending suspension in October for alleged illegal gambling activity during his time in Serie A.
Pioli remains adamant, however, that Tonali’s self-admitted gambling addiction was not made aware to him when the two were working together.
“There are no doubts about his footballing qualities. Newcastle have certainly signed an excellent player,” Pioli said of Tonali as reported by TMW.
When asked if he knew anything about Tonali’s gambling struggles while he was still at Milan, Pioli replied: “Absolutely not. I think I have a fairly open relationship with the players. I try to talk to them about everything, but we don’t always know what they have going on.”
Newcastle were reportedly and understandably frustrated by the news of Tonali’s suspension, as they had forked out an estimated fee of around €70m to bring him over from San Siro in July.
However, there is little realistically that Pioli or the club can do, as there was no indication that a suspension was on the cards at the time of the deal.
“I think the moment they bought a player like him, Newcastle signed a deal. No-one could have predicted what happened afterwards.”