Sports
Pirlo Losses Italy Football Top Job Chance Over Russian Links
Andrea Pirlo is currently the head coach of the UAE’s Dubai United
Andrea Pirlo has said he is no longer a candidate to coach the Italian national side following days of controversy over his ties to a Russian betting company.
His appointment as Italy’s next head coach had not been confirmed by the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) yet was being treated as all but certain.
But over the weekend several Italian politicians criticised the FIGC’s choice, noting that Pirlo, 47, had taken up a role as global ambassador for Russia’s Fonbet last October.
The betting company has sponsored several sporting events involving veterans of Moscow’s war in Ukraine and has organised events in Russia at which Pirlo appeared alongside pro-Kremlin figures.
“Anyone who is or has been promoting Russia after 2022 should not hold national office,” said Carlo Calenda of the centrist Azione party.
“After learning last night that I am no longer a candidate for the Italian national team, I feel it is my duty to clarify some aspects,” Pirlo, a former Internazionale, Juventus, AC Milan and Azzurri midfielder, wrote in an Instagram post on Monday morning.
“Over the last few days I watched, with great bitterness, the debate that swirled around my name,” he said, adding that any “professional collaboration” he undertook in his 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,” Pirlo wrote.
Pina Picierno, a vice-president of the European Parliament, said at the weekend that Italian football “desperately needed a cultural, ethical and managerial revolution” but that the choice of Pirlo “goes in the exact opposite direction”.
In contrast, Pirlo was offered support by the Russian ambassador in Rome, Aleksey Paramonov, who said that it was “saddening” to note that, “despite [Pirlo’s] extraordinary contribution to world sport and to Italy’s image around the world, in your own country, you are now being ostracized”.
Scrutiny of Pirlo’s ties to Fonbet and Russia intensified last spring, when he took part in a Fonbet event held in Moscow, which saw him and former teammate Marco Materazzi sign autographs at Luzhniki Stadium.
Nationalist pro-Kremlin pop star Shaman, who has repeatedly expressed his support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, also performed at the event.
At the time, Ukrainian skeleton slider Vladyslav Heraskevych – who was disqualified from the Winter Olympics over his helmet depicting fellow athletes killed in the war – noted the Luzhniki event had taken place on the same day as a large Russian attack on Ukraine.
Heraskevych also criticised Pirlo for appearing next to Russian footballer Artem Dzyuba, who in the wake of the war in Ukraine posted on social media that he was “proud to be Russian”.
“It’s sad to see childhood legends turn into moral bankrupts,” Heraskevych said.
The debate now risks engulfing new FIGC technical director Paolo Maldini, who has only been in post since 11 July and who Italian media say may resign over Pirlo’s failed appointment.
Maldini and his adviser, former AC Milan teammate Leonardo, were tasked with finding a new head coach to navigate Italy through a Nations League group that includes France, Belgium and Turkey in the autumn and then try to qualify for Euro 2028.
The Italian football community has been undergoing much soul-searching after the team failed to qualify for a third World Cup earlier this year. Italy’s loss on penalties to Bosnia-Herzegovina in April led to coach Gennaro Gattuso stepping down as well as a reshuffle of the FIGC echelons.
Earlier this month, Pep Guardiola and Carlo Ancelotti were both unsuccessfully approached ahead of Pirlo.
According to Italian media, other names currently being considered are Antonio Conte and Roberto Mancini – who led Italy to Euro 2020 glory before failing to qualify for the World Cup in Qatar and unceremoniously stepping down from the Italy bench to coach Saudi Arabia.
Sports
Leicester City Put Up For Sale
General view of a Leicester City sign from the front of King Power StadiumLeicester City are looking to sell the club for more than £200m, with its Thai owners King Power ready to leave after 16 years.
The Foxes have had an eight-page sales booklet produced by a leading US investment bank to help offload the one-time Premier League title winners.
Citigroup lists the Foxes, its women’s team, and other major assets – including the 32,000-seat King Power Stadium and its Seagrave training facility which was opened in 2020 and is valued at £121m – as well as OH Leuven, Leicester’s Belgian sister club, as up for sale in a brochure titled ‘Project Lineup’.
The document, seen by BBC Sport, values the club’s physical assets at more than £200m, though no specific sum has been attributed to the sale of its struggling teams.
The brochure speaks of “a rare opportunity to acquire a club with an excellent track record of winning promotions to higher divisions”.
Leicester’s successes, including the 5,000-1 Premier League title win of 2016 and the FA Cup triumph five years later, are well promoted in the brochure, while their place in League One, after back-to-back relegations from the top flight and the Championship, fail to get a mention.
The club’s turnover, which Citigroup forecast to be more than £97m for the 2026 financial year are also part of the pitch, but the years of financial losses and the club’s debts – which, as outlined in its 2025 accounts, include £103.6m in bank loans – are omitted.
In the years that the club yo-yoed between the Premier League and Championship, with two relegations from the top flight in three years between 2023 and 2025, the club lost more than £180m.
King Power, run by the Srivaddhanaprabha family, bought Leicester for £35m from Milan Mandaric in 2010.
Khun Aiyawatt ‘Top’ Srivaddhanaprabha is currently chairman after his father Khun Vichai died in a helicopter crash outside the stadium in 2019.
Efforts to put the third-tier club up for sale were first reported in the Financial Times, external in July, but the product brochure now being circulated to prospective buyers is public confirmation that new investors are being sought.
The sale process comes just eight months on from Khun Top saying he is shouldering the blame for the club’s drastic recent demise.
There have been growing calls from disgruntled fans for the club to be sold, with the most vocal showing coming outside King Power Stadium after relegation from the Championship was confirmed last season.
Leicester’s struggles in recent years have come at a time when the King Power duty-free business in Thailand, which has been intrinsically linked to the club since the Srivaddhanaprabha family bought the Foxes, has also endured financial difficulties.
Despite the club’s issues, Leicester City is being positioned for sale as one of only five clubs to have won all three major English trophies – the Premier League, the FA Cup and the League Cup – since 2000.
The document also outlines the potential of the club’s academy, stating the Foxes have a “strong talent pipeline backed by leading scouting infrastructure, active transfer management and highly developed academy system consistently producing top players”.
Leicester sold academy graduate Jeremy Monga to Manchester City for £10m last month.
Leicester, relegated to League One for just the second time in their history last season, will start their latest campaign in the third tier under head coach Russell Martin at Notts County on Saturday.
Sports
Amorim Wants Tomori, Nkunku 6 Other AC Milan Stars Out Of Club
AC Milan coach Ruben Amorim has decided Fikayo Tomori and Christopher Nkunku do not figure in his plans this season.
David Odogu, Pervis Estupinan, Santiago Gimenez and Philip Terracciano are also expected to leave after Amorim held a crunch meeting with club bosses on Thursday.
The Portuguese, who was dismissed by United in January following a dismal 14 months in charge, accepted the task of transforming Milan’s fortunes – with the Italian giants finishing fifth last season.
He is set for a reunion with his old side this weekend in Poland, where he will search for his first win in charge of his new club having failed to register a victory in pre-season.
A 2-2 draw with Scottish champions Celtic was followed by a 1-1 tie with fierce rivals Inter Milan, before Xabi Alonso’s Chelsea put three goals past the Portuguese’s side in a woeful result in Jakarta.
But Amorim is ready to embrace the challenge, and suggested that his task at the San Siro is even greater than his job at Old Trafford.
‘I’m really very happy to be here, it’s an honour to be the coach of Milan,’ he said.
‘Why did I choose Milan? If you read an old interview of mine you will understand it, for me a special club.
‘It’s a very big challenge that I accepted even if after the last one [at Manchester United] I told myself to accept a smaller one.
‘Perhaps it is a greater challenge than the last. I’m proud to be here, we all are, me and my staff.
‘I’m at Milan to win, if you’re Milan coach you have to have this mentality,’ he added.
‘I’m not naive, I know there’s a lot of work to do, but if you’re the Milan coach you have to play to win.’
Sports
Transfer: Man Utd Name 6 Clubs Rashford Can’t Join
Manchester United co-owner, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, has blocked Marcus Rashford from joining any direct Premier League rival.
According to the UK Mirror, the Red Devils are determined to avoid a scenario where Rashford shines at a domestic competitor.
The 28-year-old is back at Carrington for pre-season training following a loan spell at Barcelona, but his long-term future at Old Trafford remains uncertain.
Ratcliffe wants to remove Rashford from United’s wage bill, but he won’t sanction a move to the likes of Arsenal, Manchester City or Liverpool
The restrictions extend to loan inquiries, as Chelsea, Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur have been rebuffed.
There is fear among United senior officials that Rashford could prove instrumental in helping a rival secure a Champions League spot, a scenario that would be viewed as ’embarrassing’ by the club’s top brass.
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