Ivan Toney’s gambling has ruined his football career.
Shocking reports emerged on 18 January. His club, Brentford, announced on their website, “The club wishes to announce the eight-month ban from football and football-related activities imposed on Tony by an independent regulatory committee. Tony has been charged with a breach of Football Association (FA) Regulation E8.” He has also been fined £50,000 (approximately $82.14 million).
The English international made his professional debut for Northampton Town in the English fourth tier. He spent three seasons there before moving to Newcastle United, where he failed to make an impact. It wasn’t until he moved to Peterborough in the 2018-19 season that he began to show his potential. It was then that Tony burst onto the scene, exploding for 40 goals in two seasons.메이저사이트
This form led to a move to Brentford in the summer of 2020. Brentford were in the EFL Championship (second tier) at the time, and Tony broke the EFL’s all-time goalscoring record with 33 goals and 10 assists, winning the top scorer and player of the year awards. His form helped Brentford secure promotion to the English Premier League (EPL) for the first time in 74 years.
Tony’s skills were evident in the EPL, where he scored 12 goals and provided five assists in his first EPL campaign, helping the team stay up. This season has been even better. With 20 EPL goals to date, he is third in the league’s scoring charts behind Elling Holland (36) and Harry Kane (27).
With a call-up to the England national football team, it seemed like a big club was on the horizon, but then Tony was banned for eight months for gambling. Even more shockingly, it was revealed that he was a gambling addict and had even bet on his own team to lose.
According to the BBC, “The FA said Tony had bet on his team losing 13 times in seven different matches between August 2017 and March 2018. Eleven of the bets were placed against his former team Newcastle and the other two against Wigan Athletic, where he was on loan. The FA said his ‘genuine remorse’ and a diagnosis of gambling addiction led to a reduction in his punishment from 11 months to eight months.”
The good news is that Tony was not guilty of anything like manipulating the outcome of a match to favour a bet. An FA spokesperson said: “There is no evidence that Tony influenced or was in a position to influence his team to lose when he placed the bet. He was not in the squad or eligible to play at the time.”
In the wake of the reports, Tony took to his personal social media to say that he would “tell it all, no filter”.