The goalkeeper Damwers Okoyeas well Udinesehe was suspending football for two months for involvement with sports bets. The player would have deliberately received a yellow card during a series A game played in March 2024.
Okoye received the card in the second half of the match between Lazio and Udinese and could have taken a more severe punishment, four years.
The punishment of two months off the pitch, determined by the Italian Football Federation, starts to be valid from the beginning of the 2025-26 season. The player is left out of the match on August 18, when Udinese faces Carrarese in the first phase of Coppa Italia.
In all, he will lose the first six rounds of Serie A and will only return to the field on October 18, against Cremonese.
Understand the case
According to the Italian newspaper Mundo Deportivo, the investigation found that Okoye made a deal with a friend who owns a pizzeria in Udine, who multiplied by eight his bet and earned over 120 thousand euros (about $ 785,000) after the game.
Initially, he was denounced, but the Federal Prosecutor’s Office removed all charges of fraud, discarding manipulation of results, and requested a conviction only for anti -sports conduct.
