Fifa's Code of Ethics prohibits active participants in football from taking money from gambling-related activities, but that rule doesn't seem to apply to new Real Madrid manager José Mourinho, the current "brand ambassador" of two major sports betting companies.
By Philippe Auclair
And so it's happened: José Mourinho has signed with "the champion club".
However, the "champion club", here, is not Real Madrid, to whom the Portuguese coach has returned after a thirteen year absence. It is iGaming company GR8 Tech, a "re-brand" of Parimatch Tech, itself a division of Ukrainian/Cypriot sports betting operator Parimatch, a major actor in football sponsorship in their own right (*). GR8 Tech sells gaming software and "plug-and-play" sportsbooks to operators such as Mojabet and BongoBongo, which both target the African market (*).
GR8 Tech's CEO Oleksandr Feshchenko was rather pleased about this addition to his firm's stable of ambassadors, the other headliner being heavyweight world champion boxer Oleksandr Usyk. "Mourinho brings a different dimension of that same philosophy", Feshchenko said when the partnership was announced at the end of March of this year, when Mourinho was still managing Benfica. "His career in football proves that sustained winning is never accidental,...
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