Brentford and England striker Ivan Toney is currently serving a lengthy ban from football for betting offences.
Toney, who has established himself as one of the most impressive strikers in the Premier League, was faced with the charge at a time he was also carving an England career out for himself and dreaming of playing at the 2022 World Cup.
The suspension has split opinion with many feeling he was caught breaking the rules and is facing the music while others highlight the hypocrisy in football with so many betting sponsors in the game.
Here’s the background on the ban and when Toney will be free to play in the Premier League again with Brentford.
Back in May 2023, it was announced by the FA Toney would be banned from playing for Brentford and England for eight months. He was found to have broken laws around betting on 232 different occasions.
The ban came shortly before the 2023 summer transfer window, with Manchester United said to be interested at the time.
A Football Association statement said: “Ivan Toney has been suspended from all football and football-related activity with immediate effect for eight months, which runs up to and including 16 January 2024, fined £50,000 and warned as to his future conduct for breaches of The FA’s Betting Rules.
“The Brentford FC forward was charged with 262 breaches of FA Rule E8 in total between 25 February 2017 and 23 January 2021. The FA subsequently withdrew 30 of these breaches and he admitted to the remaining 232.”
The ban also meant Toney missed the 2022 World Cup when he was in serious contention for a place in Gareth Southgate’s squad. The allegations came out around the time Southgate was about to make his squad announcement, even though the ban wasn’t imposed until months later. Toney was far from impressed by the timing.
He said afterwards: “In a way it’s like get it out now so you don’t go England and then all of a sudden they want to wait until the end of the season to do the kind of things, but listen it is what it is.
“If they want to do it that way, I call it a bit spiteful but it is what it is and you just have to get on with it. The biggest punishment, even though I miss eight months of football, that was the biggest punishment to miss out on a World Cup – everyone’s dream – it is bigger than missing eight months of football. I believe in myself and hopefully I will be at the next one.”
There are two stages to this. Toney isn’t able to play properly for Brentford or England until the end of his eight-month ban, which is 16 January 2024.
Despite that, part of the terms of Toney’s ban allow him to train with Brentford once he has served the first four months of his ban. He has been training alone but from late September he will be allowed to partake fully with the Bees again.
This is great news for the team and the player as it means when the ban does end, Toney will be very close to full-match fitness. There is always the hidden delay when players are out of action for a long time, thpough usually from injury as they have to recover and then actually get fit in training before being of any use.
Toney’s eight-month ban was actually a reduced one after he was diagnosed with a gambling addiction.
