Andrea Pirlo ruled out of contention for Italy job due to Russian betting f...

Italian football legend, Andrea Pirlo has officially confirmed that he is no longer in contention for Italy’s next national football team coach’s role. The midfielder who played for many renowned clubs in his playing days, including AC Milan and Juventus also won the World Cup with Italy in 2006.

Pirlo, who emerged as one of the leading contenders to become the Italian national football team’s head coach, on Monday announced via instagram: “I heard last night that I am no longer the candidate for the Italy national team job.”

His withdrawal from coach’s role comes following a political concern over a sponsorship deal involving a sports betting firm from Russia. Many politicians in Italy raised concerns about Pirlo's contract as an ambassador for Fonbet, and argued that the national coach should not hold views that are conflicting with Italy’s support for Ukraine in the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.

Pirlo, who was all set to leave his job as the coach from Dubai United to take over the Italian national team, defended the agreement as “exclusively for commercial and sports” purposes, linked to his job in the UAE. He further added, “attributing a political significance to that collaboration means attributing beliefs to me that I have never expressed and don’t belong to me.”

His previous roles as a coach were with Juventus and Sampdoria and his stints with both the clubs were quite unsuccessful and it had already made him an unpopular choice among football fans in Italy. Pirlo was not actually Italy’s first-choice candidate, but he later became the frontrunner after Pep Guardiola and Carlo Ancelotti had declined the offers made to them.

Post Pirlo’s withdrawal from becoming Italy's football boss, attention returns to former Italian coaches, Roberto Mancini and Antonio Conte to fill up the position. The Italian national football team has been without a permanent coach since the departure of Gennaro Gattuso in April and their world-cup qualifying play-off defeat to Bosnia and Herzegovina, which saw them missing out from the World Cup for the third time in a row.