Cristian Stellini says he hopes Tottenham's former managing director Fabio Paratici can return to the game, just as he did after his own ban.
Spurs' acting head coach was drawing on his experience of being suspended from football for two-and-a-half years in 2012 for match fixing - relating to his spell as a defender with Bari in 2009-10, the final year of his playing career.
Paratici resigned his post as Spurs' managing director of football on Friday after his appeal against his own 30-month ban from the game was rejected by an Italian court. He was initially suspended from football activities in Italy in January for his role in false accounting at Juventus, where he worked for 11 years, but the ban was unexpectedly extended to the rest of the world by FIFA last month.
Stellini said Paratici could be back soon, pending the outcome of another appeal, and insisted that everyone deserves a second chance.
"He’s a man who works with passion,” Stellini said on Friday. “I hope for him [that he returns to the game in future] because I am very close to him on a human level and I hope for him he will be back but it’s not my decision, it’s the decision of Fabio.
“Also, the judgment is not finished. He could come back. There is another part of the case and he has to wait and do his best to come back soon.”
Stellini resigned as Juventus technical assistant in August 2012 following his charge and did not return to work until 2015, when he took a job as a youth coach at Genoa.
He revealed he had considered his future in the game during his suspension but says he used to time away to work on self-improvement.
“I worked a lot on myself because you have to react and be better in the future,” he said. “I wait for my moment in that time and I analyse why I was in that moment and the way to be better in the future, to not have the same problem.
“This is important work because you look yourself in the mirror and you have to go strong if you think you are not perfect. I thought in that moment it was too much for me and I made a step back to analyse if football was what I want to do 100 per cent and I decide it was. I fight and I work again. I think I am trying to do my best every day.”
Stellini insisted he did not feel his work at Tottenham was about redemption but said leading the club to a place in the top four would be greatest achievement of his career, which has included helping Inter Milan to the Serie A title as assistant to Antonio Conte.
“Yes, this is why I want to do my best,” he said ahead of Sunday's six-pointer at Newcastle. “It is not about redeeming myself. It is to be better. All the people deserve to have a second chance in their life. This is important for everyone, not just for me or the other.
“This is important for everyone, but you have to work hard and be the best possible you can.”
Spurs have said Stellini will lead the side until the end of the season but just three games into his interregnum, his position is under threat after last weekend's defeat to Bournemouth and the departure of Paratici, his compatriot and ally.
Asked if he expected to see out the campaign, Stellini said: “I’m ready to do everything, but I want to do the best to reach my task.
“They said my task is to finish the season. This is my task.”
