Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Italian football podcast. Sandra Tonali's ban has now been confirmed. He's been banned for 10 months for his illegal betting. He agreed to a plea deal with the FIGC, which involves a further 10 -month suspension, sorry, a 10 -month suspension plus a further eight months of rehabilitative work and 16 public appearances where he will educate youngsters about the dangers of betting.
Speaker: And that has now been ratified by FIFA. So it's a worldwide ban. That's his season over. He'll be out until August 2024. He will miss Euro 2024, which is devastating for Italy. Now, you went on to talk sport to discuss about this, and so I'll hand this over to you. Now, what has frustrated me from the start, and I've been very angry about, is the fact that Yvonne Tony got an eight -month ban
Speaker: when his offences were far more serious than Tenali's, because he actually bet on his own team 29 times, but 13 of them were betting... No, 13 of them were betting on his own team to lose and 15 on himself to score. 232 breaches in total, whereas Tenali never bet on his own team to lose, yet he's got a longer ban. So why is this such a problem?
Speaker: No, my problem with this is exactly what I said when I was on there with them. I mean, I was supposed to be there for just five minutes, but we ended up talking for 25 minutes, which we don't have time to do now. But look, my problem with this is simply this, that
Speaker: This is FIFA prohibiting this. It's Article 26 of FIFA's Code of Ethics that prevents football professionals from betting on football, from betting on any football activity. And it includes players, intermediaries, coaches, referees, and so on and so forth, so it's football professionals. They cannot bet on football.
Speaker: And if that's true, it comes from FIFA, meaning the global head body and head of football, then the way that these things are imposed, these sanctions are imposed, and the way that these rules are interpreted,
Speaker: and imposed on people who violate them, there should be uniformity, just like there is with doping. They don't leave doping to say, okay, if you have a breach and you take testosterone, for example,
Speaker: In Italy, you get two years, but if you do it in England, you get nine months or 11 months or 13 months. I mean, they don't leave it up to that because the World Antidoping Agency, the IOC, the International Olympic Committee, this comes from them and all the national bodies are under them and they have to impose the laws and rules that are in place, right? So it comes from above. And that's where I think this is a problem.
Speaker: that I don't see uniformity in how this is interpreted and employed. And this isn't, again, as I said, as I told Jermaine Pennant when he started talking about erroneously saying that, oh, Tony never bet on himself. He wasn't involved in the bets that he played. I was like, well, actually, he bet 15 times on himself to score. That doesn't get much more betting on yourself in a game, does it? But
Speaker: I don't want this to deteriorate into this kind of Tony versus Tonali thing, because that's demeaning to the discussion. The issue is, there's two issues here. First is, this is a FIFA problem, or this is a FIFA decision, or this is a FIFA law rule. Article 26 of the Code of Ethics. They don't want football professionals betting, and as such, if it comes from above, there should be a uniform way to handle this. There isn't.
Speaker: Secondly, you have the incredible hypocrisy of football betting
Speaker: you know, football, FA's and leagues and clubs taking money from betting companies while saying they can't, the players and not just players, no one in football is allowed to bet. That does not, I mean, this would be the equivalent of essentially football taking money from, like, what do you call it? Like,
Speaker: Well, what's the word I'm looking for? Where you have, where you take supplements, sorry, health supplements. Like this would be the equivalent of football taking money. Yeah, from health supplements that have, from companies that create health supplements that have substances that are banned. And then they say, well, you can't use it. Cause if you, I mean, it just, no, it's, there is a hypocrisy here. And especially because, well, you know, gambling is a serious addiction.
Speaker: It's a societal problem overall. We have problems with this. It's not just in Italy. It's not just in England. It's everywhere where this is allowed and this is legal. This is becoming a new epidemic, or it is already a new epidemic, and it needs to be treated seriously.
Speaker: I don't think I think that football should. I'm not saying that football created this problem. I'm not saying football can resolve this problem. But football needs to carry its own weight and do its fair share. And it's not doing that right now.
Speaker: No, no, absolutely. Absolutely. We could talk about it so long ago. I think we've discussed it a lot in the last few weeks. And if you want to listen to him some more, definitely check out Nimr's interview on Talk Spore, which was on, which day was that on? Thursday, last Thursday. Thursday. Yeah. You can find that on YouTube. I think Nimr put it on his Twitter. If you scroll down his page, you will find it.
