Betting and The Beautiful Game

Nathan O'Hagan investigates the troubling relationship between football and the gambling industry.

Ivan Toney of Brentford before his eight-month ban for gambling earlier this year. Photo: MatchDay Images Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo

“I have fought addiction to gambling and provided the FA with a medical report about my problem. I’m disappointed it wasn’t taken into proper consideration.”

These are the words written by footballer Joey Barton back in 2017 after he was handed an 18-month ban from football, having admitted to gambling on over a thousand matches. In the statement he posted on his own website at the time, Barton, now manager of Bristol Rovers, continued. “If the FA is truly serious about tackling the culture of gambling in football, it needs to look at its own dependence on the gambling companies, their role in football and in sports broadcasting, rather than just blaming the players who place a bet.”

Six years on, recent evidence suggests that the FA have not taken heed of his words.

In May of this year, Brentford striker Ivan Toney was banned from playing for 8 months after he was found guilty of gambling on over 200 matches, some of which involved his own team. If 8 months sounds like a heavy ban, it’s nothing compared to what the FA were initially seeking. They originally sought a 15-month ban, which they reduced to 11 months when Toney admitted many of the allegations. His punishment was only reduced to eight months when he was formally diagnosed with a gambling addiction. In what seemed like an arbitrarily cruel and unnecessary addendum to the ruling, under the terms of his ban, Toney wasn’t even allowed to train for the first four months.

Now Newcastle United’s Italian midfielder Sandro Tonali faces an uncertain future after he flew back to Italy this week for a private hearing with Italian authorities regarding allegations that he placed a series of bets on AC Milan, for whom he played at the time. Although unconfirmed at the time of writing, reports emerging from Italy suggest Tonali has admitted to many of the offences. If found guilty, he is also likely to face a lengthy ban from the game. The player’s agent claims that Tonali is also receiving treatment for a gambling addiction.

Few would deny the seriousness of these allegations or suggest that anyone found guilty of them shouldn’t face some sort of punishment. But how many cases like this will it take before the FA, as well as clubs, turn their gaze inward and examine the nature of the game’s egregious relationship with gambling, rather than simply punishing players like this?

Historically, there has been a long list of former footballers who have struggled with gambling addiction. Former England international Paul Merson has spoken many times about his problem with it, as have players such as Michael Chopra and Matthew Etherington. It is perhaps not surprising that footballers can be attracted to the world of gambling. They spend their careers involved in intense, high-stakes battles for 90 minutes every week, a game which produces a thrill that is hard to replicate elsewhere. They have large amounts of disposable income, and often a lot of time on their hands. Is it any wonder they seek high risk and reward thrills in their spare time?

And yet, far from learning lessons from this pattern, the FA has allowed, if not actively encouraged, gambling culture to become more and more deeply interwoven into the fabric of the game.

I have written in Byline Times before about how football has failed the fans by allowing them to be bombarded with gambling advertising, sponsorship and slogans, but it is becoming increasingly clear that it is not just the fans who are being let down.

If you look at Ivan Toney’s case, it’s impossible to miss the hypocrisy at play. Having made his debut for Northampton Town as a youngster, Toney earned moves to Newcastle and then Peterborough before really making his name at Brentford, where he won the Championship’s player of the month award in October 2020. Or, to give the division its full name, the Sky Bet Championship.

After Toney’s goals played a huge part in Brentford’s promotion to the Premier League, the club signed a shirt sponsorship deal with South African gambling company Hollywoodbets, making them one of eight clubs sponsored by a gambling firm. A simple Google image search of Toney will show him variously wearing gambling logos, holding individual trophies emblazoned with betting logos, and surrounded by betting imagery, and yet he is expected to steer well clear of an industry whose presence in the game he plays has become so normalised, so depended upon?

While Newcastle and Brentford have both continued to offer holistic support to their players, the FA seems keener on making an example of them, presumably in an attempt to paint the individuals as bad apples who don’t represent a wider problem within the game.

In April of this year, the Premier League announced a ‘ban’ on gambling firms taking out shirt sponsorship deals. However, the ban will only extend to shirt-front sponsorships. Clubs will still be able to display the logos of betting companies on their shirt sleeves, as well as on advertising hoardings surrounding the pitch, ensuring that gambling money and influence will continue in football in some form. Not only does this give the ban the feel of a half-measure, but it won’t even come into effect until the 2026/27 season.

Much has quite rightly been said about the growing influence of nation states with troubling records of human rights abuses on football in Europe and especially the UK via ownership or sponsorship of clubs. But the relationship with gambling firms is much more deeply entrenched in the game, and while the sums of money flowing into the game from betting companies may not compare with those coming in from oil-rich states, the influence it brings runs much deeper.

So intertwined has gambling culture become with football, it’s hard to conclude at this point that the game is anything other than deeply compromised.

Along with the Professional Footballers Association, the FA has a duty of care to its players, but it seems the game would rather protect the financial benefits that come with gambling’s growing encroachment into the sport, than protect the player’s wellbeing from its negative impacts.

For a long time now, the authorities have failed to safeguard the people who pay to watch the game, whether in person or on television, and are proving themselves similarly remiss when it comes to those who play it.