Andrea Pirlo allowed his Italian players to SMOKE at half-time when he was in charge at Turkish side Karagumruk, claims his former player Colin Kazim-Richards

• The ex-AC Milan player managed the Turkish club for less than one season 
• Pirlo moved to Sampdoria, who sit 19th in Serie B after relegation last term
• Listen to the latest episode of Mail Sport’s podcast ‘It’s All Kicking Off!’ 

Colin Kazim-Richards has claimed Andrea Pirlo used to allow his Fatih Karagumruk players to smoke during half-time breaks whilst at the Turkish Super-Lig outfit. 

The forward left the club as a free agent over the summer, but shared Pirlo’s solitary season in Istanbul with the former AC Milan player. 

Pirlo last less than one campaign with the side before he was sacked with three games left to play in the 2022-23 season as the club languished ninth in the table. 

The former Juventus manager has since joined Serie B side Sampdoria, where he enduring a similarly torrid time after being relegated at the end of last term. 

But Pirlo is unlikely to have imported one quirk to his managerial life on the Bosphorus to the Genovese club. 

A former player of Andrea Pirlo’s has claimed the former Karagumruk manager allowed smoking on matchdays

Colin Kazim-Richards acknowledged that there’s a ‘different culture’ around smoking in Turkey

The Turkish Super Lig side sacked the manager with just three games to play last season

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In an interview on Filthy Fellas podcast, Kazim-Richards revealed that Pirlo adapted quickly to Turkey’s smoking culture, allowing players to even light up on matchdays. 

‘We got a lot of Italians that smoke,’ the 37-year-old began. ‘In Turkey, you can (smoke), it depends who the coach is. 

‘But last year with (Andrea) Pirlo they were allowed to smoke and they’re smoking non-stop before the game. Cigarettes. Proper. Like half-time sitting and smoking.

‘Pirlo talking, they’re down there smoking. It’s a totally different culture. You understand. So it’s not me saying something as a shock factor, but it’s me saying like that you can do it legitimately.’

Turkey moved to ban smoking from stadiums in 2010 and in 2013, Besiktas’ then-manager Slaven Bilic was given a warning from the Turkish Football Federation after he was pictured smoking whilst watching a match at Galatasaray’s Turk Telekom Arena, but pervasive attitudes around smoking remain prevelant in Turkish culture. 

Similar behaviour has not been entirely extinct from the European top-flight in recent years, with Maurizio Sarri smoking on the touchline whilst in charge at Napoli. 

When the Lazio head coach accepted a move to Chelsea in 2018, harsher laws around smoking at grounds meant that Sarri would frequently be seen clutching a packet of unlit cigarettes, and he is thought to have chewed cigarette butts in a bid to ease tensions.  

Former Chelsea manager Maurizio Sarri was stymied by England’s stringent smoking laws and resorted to chewing on cigarette butts

The now-Lazio manager flouted UEFA rules with a celebratory puff after winning the Europa League in 2019

Kazim-Richards’ anecdote is not the first that has tied Pirlo to the vice: in 2020, former Arsenal star Nicklas Bendtner claimed that upon his move to Juventus, he once discovered the ex-Italy international in a somewhat compromising position.

On his first day at the club, Bendtner recounted in 2020, he ‘found 10 or 12 (Juventus players) in the toilets, just having a coffee, talking, enjoying each other’s company – and having a cig.’

Singling out Pirlo and team-mate Gianluigi Buffon, Bendtner added: ‘What can you say to these guys? If you look at their careers and how professional they are, it was a real eye opener to me actually regarding these two.

‘Because the professionalism they showed on the pitch and the camaraderie was on a different level, so no one thought anything of (smoking).’ 

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