We Can’t Criminalize Betting For Footballers With Several Betting Sponsors Around – Buffon

Ex Italy goalkeeper, Gianluigi Buffon has come out to defend compatriots, Sandro Tonali and Nicolo Fagioli, who are serving bans over betting breaches. He recently had his say while speaking to the press, and fans have been reacting.

According to him, he believes it is wrong to criminalize betting for footballers, especially when there are several betting sponsors in football that encourage gambling.

Buffon added that he also does not understand why a footballer faces punishment for betting on football, but goes scot-free if it is on volleyball, basketball or dog racing.

His words, “This is a very sensitive issue. I think it is wrong to criminalise and not to make distinctions. Betting in itself is not a crime, the stadiums themselves and sports broadcasts are full of App advertisements of this kind, and the state encourages gambling. If, on the other hand, a footballer bets on football, he faces punishment, and rightly so; but if he bets on volleyball, basketball, dog racing… he is not committing a crime. And it gets worse when people talk about gambling, again missing the point: gambling is not a problem of how much you spend, but of the time you devote to this activity. And we have to explain this to the children: it is not that if you make continuous 1 euro bets by spending hours and hours in front of the App, then it is OK; whereas if one spends 1 million on one occasion then he is a gambler. We can say he’s a moron, that’s fine; but the disease stems from the addiction, the continuity with which one does something.”

“I don’t like bigots who judge with an aberrant superficiality without really knowing what the motives are. I’ve been there myself, being muddied without having committed anything: when things are cleared up, you forget to explain and apologise and leave people with a label on them. I find that deeply wrong.”

WOW.