Ivan Toney, a striker for Brentford, has been suspended from all football-related activities for eight months after he accepted breaking Football Association (FA) betting rules. He has also been fined £50,000 and warned about his future conduct for 232 breaches of the FA’s betting rules. His suspension will begin immediately and he will not be allowed to play again until 17 January 2024. However, he can return to training with Brentford four months before the suspension ends on 17 September.
The FA released a statement saying that Toney’s sanctions were imposed by an independent Regulatory Commission following a personal hearing. The written reasons for these sanctions will be published in due course and the FA will wait to review them before commenting further. The breaches Toney has been found guilty of took place between 25 February 2017 and 23 January 2021, during which time he represented Scunthorpe United, Wigan Athletic, Peterborough United and Brentford.
Toney has scored 20 goals in 33 Premier League appearances this season, helping Brentford into ninth place in the table. He will miss Brentford’s trip to Tottenham on Saturday and the final day of the season at home to league leaders Manchester City on 28 May. Brentford have noted the FA’s decision and are awaiting the publication of the written reasons before “considering our next steps”.
Toney won his first England cap as a late substitute in the 2-0 Euro 2024 qualifying win over Ukraine in March, having received his first call-up to Gareth Southgate’s squad last September. This incident follows Kieran Trippier being 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. In 2017, Joey Barton – then a Burnley player – was banned for 18 months, reduced to 13 on appeal, after admitting placing 1,260 football-related bets over a 10-year period.