Football is firmly in gambling’s grip as it hypocritically clamps down on Ivan Toney

H aving owned up to multiple breaches of Football Association betting rules, the Brentford striker Ivan Toney faces a lengthy ban. The episode heralds a sad fall from grace for the talented 26-year-old, who might have made England’s World Cup squad had the shadow of the Football Association’s charges not been hanging over him.

It is right that Toney is sanctioned for breaking rules designed to protect the integrity of the game. But the powers-that-be in football can hardly clutch their pearls in horror at this turn of events having suckled hungrily at the gambling industry’s teat for so long.

The Big Step, a campaign group dedicated to removing gambling adverts from football, scented the whiff of hypocrisy neatly, posting a quartet of photos on Twitter. They show Toney, twice, proudly holding a SkyBet player of the month award, Toney in Brentford’s strip, emblazoned with the logo of Hollywood Bets, and Toney’s chest serving as a billboard for the Asian betting firm Fun88, during a stint at Newcastle.

If you force young people to endorse addictive products, don’t be surprised if they use them. pic.twitter.com/U5ONQIrnvP

For anyone who thinks Toney is old enough to resist the gambling imagery surrounding him, consider the case of Chris Rigg, who came off the Sunderland bench in the FA Cup tie against Shrewsbury wearing a shirt advertising Spreadex. Rigg is 15. The firm specialises in spread betting, which consistently rates among the most addictive gambling products in analysis conducted by the NHS. Football’s love affair with the bookmakers goes much deeper.

If Toney betting on football matches looks like a conflict of interest, what of the fact that bookmakers and gambling entrepreneurs own clubs outright? Stoke are