Friday Freebie: All bets are off

Do football and gambling need a bigger break up or has the damage been done?

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A couple of weeks ago we looked at insurance for non-league players, something that lacks in education but is a risk year on year for those who play without protection and no forward planning.

There are other avenues within the game where players don’t receive a talk, information or that education and another route I’m going down to look at is betting.

Gambling and gambling companies go hand in hand with football, but more recently the game has been trying to do it’s bit to force these two factions apart. Gone are the days where visiting a bookmakers on the high street was the only way to place a bet and a simple one at that.

The industry is big business, not as big as the top levels of football mind you but you can create a bet these days on almost anything. Footballers like you and I are of course human beings but they are governed by rules  and laws in order to protect them from being accused of match-fixing or such like.

However, temptation gets the better of us all from time to time. Addiction doesn’t pick and choose who it affects either, and with footballers having a lot of down time after training and before games as well the gap needs to be filled.

The most high profile case recently was that of Ivan Toney. The Brentford striker was banned last year after admitting 232 cases over a four year period. The reason for Toney’s eight month ban was due in part to the player betting on games involving his registered club at time, that covers one of the top lines for being investigated.

Toney was also involved in games he betted on as well, 11 in total from 29 bets. He also bet on his own team to lose within those same bets, no doubt extremely good reasons why the FA were justified to dish out the punishments.

The rules however differ for players at some levels. For those who play at Step 5 and below within the county league level they are prohibited from betting on competitions they are involved in ONLY, that’s to say their own County League, the FA Vase or by my reading of the rule the FA Cup as well.

They can however bet on football above those levels and outside of the country as well, my own thoughts are I wonder if those who dual register from a level or two above are aware that they are not exempt from betting?

Players who are registered for a Step 4 club up to and beyond the National League are in fact banned from betting worldwide on football matches. That extends beyond matches to player transfers or new managers being appointed and also using that knowledge to allow others to gain financially from that information.

How you police that I have no idea, on any of those counts! That is unless someone else shops you, especially if the information given out doesn’t result in actually happen to be a winning bet.

But, lets take it back a little bit. I am of the understanding that players even at National League get very little education along these lines. Now, some of those players will have dropped out of the Football League having had that information but it seems it doesn’t get to everyone.

I imagine there are plenty of influences out there to ‘persuade’ players to divulge information in the hope of a tidy sum. The higher you go no doubt the more it is in play far more frequently than you would expect.

The FA Charge sheet is open to all for viewing and doesn’t just cover those who bet, there are all number of misconduct charges levied at players, staff and club officials, you can find the link here.

What should strike you if you have a read through is the length of punishment seems out of kilter with the level of charge. It doesn’t give you any detail however as to what these players betted on exactly and some of the amount of bets placed versus the amount of years taken to accrue the bets seems misplaced.

Are these players aware of their actions before they got caught? Were they hoping to slip under the radar being so far down the food chain? Maybe they were the ‘lucky’ or ‘unlucky’ ones, depending on how you view it.

Like other things in life it becomes an addiction and it just doesn’t care who it effects either. There are a lot of areas in non-league football that shouldn’t be treated any different to their professional counterparts and this is just another one of those, what you don’t see changing is the FA actually looking after all areas of their jurisdiction, some parts are left to rack and ruin.

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Do the punishments fit the crime? Should players be getting better advice? Let me know in the comments below.