Do we like them?Do we like Giorgio Chiellini?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Clean on harm, solid good deeds and a stand against racism, with a hot-headed tunnel row and a thin record on LGBTQ+ issues keeping it from a 9.
Chiellini is the hard-as-nails defender who spent years at Juventus and played for Italy, and who was still turning out for the Azzurri in 2021. He's now on the other side of the desk as a Juventus executive, and in 2026 he's still talking club business at football festivals. The tough-guy image is real, and so is a slightly softer side.
The messy bit is recent. After Juventus lost 3-2 at Inter in February 2026, Chiellini and club CEO Damien Comolli confronted referee Federico La Penna over Pierre Kalulu's red card. Serie A's sporting judge banned Chiellini until 27 February for protesting in a disrespectful way. Comolli copped a longer ban and a fine, and reports said the judge found Comolli's conduct more physically threatening.
Now the harm check. We found no harmful words from him about LGBTQ+ people, women, migrants or the planet, and nothing on who he keeps working with that sets off alarms. In fairness, that's partly a gap: the searches turned up nothing either way on LGBTQ+ issues, climate or politics. The record we did find leans the right way.
He's not a saint on the nice front, though. His 2020 autobiography took swipes at Mario Balotelli and Felipe Melo, and both hit back in public, and he was reported to have joked about the Luis Suarez bite and later said he respected Suarez. Pretty standard dressing-room stuff, but it's a bit much for a book.
The real good stuff: in 2017 he emailed Juan Mata's Common Goal initiative himself and pledged 1% of his salary to football charity work for disadvantaged kids. Nothing flashy, and it was his own idea.
So, would we support him? Yes. He passes the harm test, with the honest note that it's a thin record on LGBTQ+ issues. On being a good person it's a pass with an asterisk for the 2026 tunnel row, a hot temper rather than a pattern of mistreating people.