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It’s fair to say football’s relationship with gambling is a game of two halves.
On one hand, players are forbidden from placing any kind of bet on a match. For instance, a non-league part-timer cannot even gamble on the Champions League or World Cup. In contrast, footballers and stadiums are effectively billboards for gambling companies, which lavish huge sums on sport, and football in particular.
A number of players have fallen foul of betting rules and paid the price, Brentford striker Ivan Toney and Newcastle's Sandro Tonali being high-profile examples. But they aren't the first and probably won’t be the last.
READ MORE: Banned Ivan Toney struck secret deal with FA to let him train at Brentford
READ MORE: FA investigate Sandro Tonali over whether he broke betting rules 'after' Newcastle move
Last year, former Sunderland, Sheffield Wednesday and Aberdeen forward Chris Maguire’s career was put on hold amid football betting allegations. He was initially charged with more than 50 breaches but pleaded not guilty to most having been the victim of identity fraud. Having been suspended by Lincoln, his club at the time, in August 2022, he was initially fined £750 by an independent regulatory commission and given a warning, only for the FA to appeal against the sanction.
In January, he was eventually handed a six-week ban, but as it was backdated to the previous November, he could resume his career. The breaches of FA regulations related to 10 bets placed by Maguire.
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“It was difficult,” the Eastleigh striker tells Daily Star Sport ahead of his side’s FA Cup second round tie with Reading on Sunday. “It came out and people just assumed I was guilty.
“There were things that came out which were a shock to me because I think they charged me with 52 bets, which was a complete surprise. I then found out that accounts were made up in my name.
“I got found guilty of 10 bets which, in the grand scheme of things, is nothing. It’s actually like two bets because each team on an accumulator is one bet.
“That was a tough period in my career. I left Lincoln and then my future was a bit unknown because I had this charge over my head. Now it’s behind me and I can just focus on playing football.”
While it is an episode the 34-year-old is keen to put behind him, he has strong views on the game’s links with the gambling industry and would like to see a blanket ban on betting advertising in the game.
“It’s day-to-day life, footballers are human beings who make mistakes,” he reflects. “In this day and age, when you’ve got things like that thrown in your face, you never know what’s going on in people’s lives. It’s obviously a problem and I think you need to take the whole betting stuff out of football, to take it away from players.
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“It’s all right saying they get [paid] good money, this, that and the other. But if the FA want to be really strong about it then there shouldn’t be any advertising to do with gambling.
“For what the rules are, the amount it’s in your face, the punishment… It’s happened to myself, it’s happened to loads of players. I’m not the first and I won’t be the last person to get found betting. I think it needs to get looked at properly to resolve it.”
- FA Cup
- Non-League Football
- League Two
- League One
- Sunderland FC
- Championship
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