One of Italian football’s most iconic former midfielders, Andrea Pirlo, has announced he is removing himself from consideration for the head coaching role of the Italian men’s national team, bringing an end to days of fierce public controversy over his professional partnership with a Russian-based betting company.
Prior to Pirlo’s announcement, his selection as the next Azzurri manager had not been formally finalized by the Italian Football Federation (FIGC), but the appointment was widely viewed as an almost guaranteed outcome. The controversy ignited over the recent weekend, when multiple high-profile Italian politicians publicly condemned the federation’s expected choice, drawing attention to the 47-year-old coach’s role as a global ambassador for Fonbet, a Russian betting firm that Pirlo took on in October 2024.
Critics have highlighted that Fonbet sponsors a range of sporting events for veterans of Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, and has hosted public events in Russia where Pirlo appeared alongside prominent pro-Kremlin public figures. Carlo Calenda, leader of Italy’s centrist Azione party, laid out the core of the opposition in clear terms: “Anyone who is or has been promoting Russia after 2022 should not hold national office.”
Pirlo, who currently serves as head coach of Dubai United in the United Arab Emirates and earned 116 caps for Italy as a player during a decorated club career with Juventus, AC Milan and Inter Milan, shared his announcement in an Instagram post published early Monday. He said he had watched the weeks-long discourse surrounding his potential appointment with deep frustration, and pushed back against accusations that his commercial partnership carried political undertones.
“Over the last few days I watched, with great bitterness, the debate that swirled around my name,” Pirlo wrote. “Any professional collaboration I undertook in my capacity as coach for United FC in Dubai was exclusively of a commercial and sporting nature. To assign a political meaning to that collaboration means ascribing to me beliefs which I have never expressed and that do not belong to me.”
The criticism extended beyond Italian national politics, with Pina Picierno, vice-president of the European Parliament, arguing that the expected appointment of Pirlo ran counter to the changes Italian football desperately needs. “Italian football desperately needed a cultural, ethical and managerial revolution, but the choice of Pirlo goes in the exact opposite direction,” Picierno said over the weekend.
Unsurprisingly, the controversy drew a response from Russian diplomatic officials, with Aleksey Paramonov, Russia’s ambassador to Rome, expressing support for Pirlo and condemning the backlash. Paramonov called it “saddening” that Pirlo, who has made such an outsized contribution to global football and Italy’s international reputation, was now being ostracized in his home country over the partnership.
Scrutiny of Pirlo’s ties to Fonbet first ramped up last spring, when he attended a company event held at Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium alongside former Italy and Inter teammate Marco Materazzi for an autograph session. The event featured a performance by Shaman, a nationalist pro-Kremlin pop singer who has repeatedly publicly voiced support for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It also coincided with a large-scale Russian military strike on Ukraine, a detail that was quickly highlighted by Ukrainian athletes.
Vladyslav Heraskevych, a Ukrainian skeleton racer who was disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after wearing a helmet honoring Ukrainian athletes killed in the opening weeks of the war, issued sharp criticism of Pirlo at the time. Heraskevych also called out Pirlo for sharing the event with Russian international footballer Artem Dzyuba, who publicly stated he was “proud to be Russian” on social media following the invasion. “It’s sad to see childhood legends turn into moral bankrupts,” Heraskevych said.
Now, the collapse of Pirlo’s expected appointment has created new instability for the FIGC, just weeks after a major organizational shakeup. Newly appointed technical director Paolo Maldini, who only took up his post on July 11, now faces growing speculation that he could resign over the failed process, according to multiple Italian media reports.
Maldini and his senior adviser, former AC Milan teammate Leonardo, were brought in specifically to lead the search for a new head coach, who will be tasked with navigating a tough Nations League group that includes world champions France, Belgium and Turkey this autumn, before leading Italy’s qualifying campaign for Euro 2028.
Italian football has been in a period of intense introspection since the national team failed to qualify for its third consecutive World Cup earlier this year. That failure, which came via a penalty shootout loss to Bosnia-Herzegovina in April, prompted the resignation of former head coach Gennaro Gattuso and a full restructuring of senior FIGC leadership.
Before the federation settled on Pirlo as its preferred candidate, senior FIGC figures approached both Pep Guardiola of Manchester City and Real Madrid’s Carlo Ancelotti, but both managers declined the offer. According to Italian media reports, the FIGC is now turning back to the pool of available candidates, with former Italy head coaches Antonio Conte and Roberto Mancini emerging as the top contenders. Mancini led Italy to an unexpected Euro 2020 title before the team’s shocking failure to qualify for the 2022 Qatar World Cup, after which he stepped down to take the head coaching role with the Saudi Arabian national team.