Brentford’s Ivan Toney banned for eight months over betting breaches
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Ivan Toney is banned until mid-January and has been fined £50,000 (S$67,180) after admitting to 232 of the breaches.
PHOTO: AFP
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LONDON – Brentford striker Ivan Toney was banned on Wednesday from all football-related activity for eight months over breaches of betting rules.
Toney, who was charged by the Football Association in November with 262 alleged breaches over a four-year period,
“I am naturally disappointed that I will be unable to play for the next eight months. The written reasons for the commission’s decision have not yet been published, so I can make no further comment at this point,” he wrote on Twitter.
The 27-year-old England international was also fined £50,000 (S$83,000) after he admitted to 232 of the breaches.
“Ivan Toney has been suspended from all football and football-related activity with immediate effect for eight months, which runs up to and including Jan 16, 2024, fined £50,000 and warned as to his future conduct for breaches of The FA’s betting rules,” an FA statement said on Wednesday.
“The Brentford forward was charged with 262 breaches of FA Rule E8 in total between Feb 25, 2017 and Jan 23, 2021. The FA subsequently withdrew 30 of these breaches and he admitted to the remaining 232.”
An independent regulatory commission imposed the sanctions on Toney, who will not be allowed to train with his Brentford teammates until Sept 17.
Toney will miss Brentford’s last two English Premier League fixtures this term at Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday and against Manchester City on the final day of the campaign.
However, former England striker Darren Bent suggested the ban might not cause Toney to miss out on a big summer move. He told talkSPORT: “Someone big will still get him... That is half a season, done.
“I don’t think Brentford will be in relegation trouble but next season, it will be more difficult... They might have to take the £70 million to £80 million fee and replace him, he is going to be a big miss.”
Toney, capped once by England, against Ukraine in March, has scored 21 goals in 35 appearances for Brentford this season.
Although he featured in an England squad before last year’s World Cup, Toney was left out of Gareth Southgate’s squad for the tournament in Qatar.
His absence will be a huge blow for Brentford as his goals played a key role in their rise to ninth place in the Premier League heading into the last two games of the season.
Brentford will wait for the publication of the written reasons for Toney’s ban because taking their “next steps”.
Toney is not the first high-profile player to be banned for offences related to betting.
England defender Kieran Trippier, now with Newcastle United, was banned for 10 weeks and fined £70,000 by the FA in 2020 after giving out information for others to bet on his transfer from Tottenham to Atletico Madrid.
In 2017, Joey Barton was banned for 18 months, reduced to 13 on appeal, while playing for Burnley after admitting placing 1,260 football-related bets over a 10-year period. AFP, REUTERS
