Brentford star, Ivan Toney has promised to speak “with no filter” after being handed an eight-month ban from football for breaching the Football Association’s betting rules.
The 27-year-old has been banned from playing professional football for eight months, and cannot train with Brentford until mid-September, after admitting 232 of the 262 breaches with which he was charged at the end of last year. He will return to Premier League football in January.
The FA released a 25-page document on Friday, May 26, to show how they decided on Toney’s punishment. The forward received a reduced ban because he has allegedly been diagnosed as a gambling addict, with the FA initially considering a 15-month suspension.
The FA had alleged that Toney placed 13 bets on his former club, Newcastle, to lose in seven matches between August 2017 and March 2018, although he did not feature in any of those games. There is no evidence he gambled on any games he played in. Toney joined his current side Brentford in August 2020 but did not place any bets involving the Bees.
Had Ivan Toney not admitted to the charges, his ban would have been 15 months. The judgement referenced his “genuine remorse” and previous good behaviour off the pitch as factors that were taken into account.
Though Toney has been offered the support he needs in both his personal and professional life, the 27-year-old has promised that his side of the story is coming. “I’ll speak soon with no filter,” he tweeted.
I’ll speak soon with no filter.
— Ivan Toney (@ivantoney24) May 26, 2023
Betting in football has been a subject of intense debate for some time, with the Premier League announcing in April that it would withdraw all gambling sponsorship from the front of matchday shirts from the start of the 2026-27 campaign.
