Last week, the English Football Association (FA) handed Brentford striker Ivan Toney an eight-month ban from all football activity for breaching 232 betting rules between February 2017 and January 2021.
The ban means Toney will return to Brentford’s matchday squad on January 17, 2024, but he is allowed to return to training on September 17 this year.
The FA has now released written reasons explaining how they arrived at the ban with a breakdown of the specific bets Toney placed during that period as follows:
- 126 bets were in matches in a competition in which Toney’s club had participated or were eligible to participate in that season.
- Of those 126 bets, 29 bets involved clubs Toney was registered with or on loan with at the time.
- 16 of those 29 bets were on Toney’s team to win 15 different matches. He played in 11 of them and was an unused substitute in another.
- 13 bets of the 29 bets were on Toney’s own team to lose in seven different matches between August 22, 2017, and March 3, 2018. However, he did not play in any of those matches.
- 11 of the 13 bets were against Newcastle while Toney was on loan at another club.
- Two bets were related to a game between Wigan vs Aston Villa while Toney was on loan at Wigan but he was not part of the squad.
The England striker also told a friend on March 29, 2018, that he would be in the starting lineup of his club’s next match. This was a breach of FA Rule E8.2 on insider information and Toney argued it was widely known he was likely to play. However, he later accepted this action as a breach of the rules.
The FA statement also found that Toney was diagnosed with gambling addiction by Dr Philip Hopley and although he has stopped gambling on football, he still does on other sports.
“The lack of control the player has in respect of gambling is clearly a reflection of his diagnosed gambling addiction. The position appears to be that Mr Toney has ceased gambling on football although he still gambles on other sports and casino games.” the FA document reads in part.
Toney has been brilliant for Brentford this season and was even called to the England squad by manager Gareth Southgate. After the news of the ban, Southgate said yesterday during the announcement of the England squad for the Euro qualifiers in June that Toney should be taken care of.
