By Samuel A. May 19, 2023
Brentford forward Ivan Toney has been banned from football for eight months with immediate effect after admitting and proving guilty to 232 breaches of the FA betting rules.
Ivan’s suspension will start with immediate effect, which means he will miss Brentford’s final two games of the season (Spurs on Saturday and Manchester City on the final matchday of the season). Toney, who has scored 33% of Brentford’s Premier League goals this season, will be banned until January 16, 2024, and has been fined £50,000 after he admitted to the alleged breaches.
An independent regulatory commission imposed Toney’s sanctions and he will not be allowed to train with his Brentford teammates until at least September 17.
The England forward, who has scored 21 goals in 35 appearances for Brentford this season, has a right to appeal. In a statement, Brentford said they were awaiting an explanation for reasons of the independent regulatory commission involvement.
Toney later posted on social media to say he was “disappointed” with the ban but would not be commenting further until the written reasons are published.
Toney won his first England cap as a late substitute in the country’s 2-0 win over Ukraine in March, having received his first call-up to Gareth Southgate’s squad last September.
However, he’s not the only one to have been suspended due to betting. England defender Kieran Trippier was banned for 10 weeks by the FA in December 2020 for giving out information for others to bet on his transfer from Tottenham to Atletico Madrid. Also, in 2017, Joey Barton, a Burnley player at the time, was banned for 18 months, reduced to 13 on appeal, after admitting placing 1,260 football related bets over a 10-year period.
This is a major blow for Toney, whose career for both club and country is now uncertain, and for Brentford, who are now denied the services of one of the country’s best strikers until well into next season. Any plans to sell him this summer may also have been jeopardised. Some will say the FA had little choice but to hand out such a sanction, and point out that Toney should have known the rules and stuck to them. Others could as well point to football’s close relationship with the gambling industry, especially in the form of advertising and shirt sponsorship, and ask if the sport’s authorities should shoulder some responsibility too.
