Newcastle United midfielder Sandro Tonali knows he’s put his ‘career at risk’ with his involvement in the betting scandal currently gripping Italian football.
That’s according to Gazzetta dello Sport, who provide the latest on the Newcastle man today as he faces up to the consequences of his actions.
The newspaper reports that Tonali is now ‘in a hurry’, wanting to be questioned by both the Turin Prosecutor’s Office and the Federal Prosecutor’s Office as soon as possible so he can confess and then pay his dues.
The midfielder knows he made a mistake in his involvement in online gambling, at least from a sporting point of view, and that a ‘heavy disqualification’ is potentially lying in front of him.
His hope is to be able to ‘free himself’ from the weight of the guilt he is feeling as soon as possible, and his lawyers are working to make that happen.
Yesterday one of those lawyers, Marco Feno, showed up at the offices of Manuela Pedrotta, the public prosecutor coordinating the investigation into illegal betting, to communicate his client’s full availability to be questioned.
It was an informal meeting between the pair, done to establish contact between the two parties and perhaps set out a draft timeline.
The Newcastle United man will have his story heard but at the moment there is no rush and that is likely to take place between the middle and the end of next week.
The prosecutors first want to analyse all of the data they have, which means complete checks of the electronic devices they took from Tonali and his teammates when they headed to Italy’s camp in Coverciano last week.
The plan is to fully check smartphone conversations to find names, addresses and anything that may be useful to trace the sites involved and potential other participants too.
The belief is that everything revolves around organised crime and the Italian trio have been caught up in a ‘bad story’. At this moment there is no suggestion of sports fraud and the prosecutor’s office have made this clear.
The reality, though, is that the trio face heavy fines and potential bans and Tonali is aware he is ‘putting his career at risk’ with what he has done. From a criminal point of view, he could get away with a ‘pecuniary sanction’, which could be a three month ‘arrest’ or a fine ranging from €51 to €516.
But on a sporting level he could face a ‘heavy disqualification’, particularly if it is discovered he bet on Newcastle or AC Milan games whilst at either club.
It all depends on what the Prosecutor’s Office decides to do and Tonali, who is back with Newcastle for now, expects to return to Italy in the next few days. In the meantime, he’s already turned to a specialist to cure his gambling addiction, the first step on a road he knows isn’t going to be easy.
