Ivan Toney accepts breaking FA betting rules and faces lengthy ban

Ivan Toney is braced for a lengthy ban after accepting multiple charges of breaching the Football Association’s betting rules.

The Brentford striker could miss several months after admitting to many, but not all, of the 262 charges made by the FA in November and December. The punishment would come as a significant blow to Toney, whose star continues to rise during a stellar season, and to a Brentford side that has made a surprise push towards the European spots .

Toney was first charged in November with conducting 232 breaches of the FA’s rule E8 between 25 February 2017 and 23 January 2021. The following month he was charged with breaching the same rule a further 30 times between 14 March 2017 and 18 February 2019. The alleged breaches began when Toney was a Newcastle player on loan at Scunthorpe, stretching to his current employment with the Bees.

Rule E8 bans players from betting on games, asking others to do so on their behalf or sharing privileged information for betting purposes. The Newcastle player Kieran Trippier, then with Atlético Madrid, was found guilty in December 2020 of violating it and was banned from all football-related activity for 10 weeks, also being fined £70,000.

Toney is expected to contest some of the charges at an FA disciplinary hearing that will decide his fate. A prolonged absence from the pitch appears inevitable and there are other high-profile precedents. One is the case of Joey Barton, who was on Burnley’s books at the tail end of his playing career when he received an 18-month ban, reduced to 13 on appeal, after accepting charges that he had placed 1,260 bets on football matches between 2006 and 2013.

If Toney’s case is dealt with swiftly he could miss the chance of a return to the