Sandro Tonali will return to play in August. As you know he received a ban for placing bets on football games. What is your opinion on players making bets on football games. Should they be allowed to bet on football (excluding games where they play).
Players making bets on football games bring into question serious ethical and integrity issues. It's a conflict of interest as professional players are likely to have inside information about other teams which gives them an unfair advantage. Also, let players focus on their job, which is playing. Let the professionalism remain as it is. The current rules that bar players from betting are more than justified and should stay as they are.
A few years ago there was a big scandal over match fixing in the English top league (it was called the First Division then and not the Premier League). If my memory serves me right there were players not involved in the specific matches making bets on the "fixed matches" which suggests that it doesn't matter too much if the player is playing in the game or not.
My take is that players should not be allowed to bet on any football matches. Of course, if they really want to do this they can arrange it through friends or family members. It does suggest to the outside world that the player knows something that they don't which would be unfair (this may not be the case but the perception is there).
@graham Wasn't it Dan Sturridge who made some bets through his relatives and got into some serious trouble back in the day?
Life is crazy. To think I had actually almost forgotten about that guy
When you're getting paid more than almost ever human being in the planet, why do you feel the need to risk it all to win a bit more?
I think players should not place bets on games whether they are playing or not. They have a higher edge as that's their territory and arguably have insider info by default.
@graham A lot of times even when they arrange it through family and friends they are still caught especially when they bet on games or stuff they themselves can influence especially in the premier league. They seem to have hawk eye investigators for that kind of thing with Tonali, Paqueta, Trippier and Tony amongst those caught or under investigation recently.
@lucianop That's what i don't get throwing away gold bars for crappy coins, it doesn't make sense. Tonali's was addiction though which kind of explains it a little bit.
They absolutely shouldn't be allowed to bet, rule should stay in place as is. Too much conflict of interest if its removed.
@ishtar Thanks for the update I was unaware that there were so many "spies" around but I shouldn't be surprised given the amount of money swashing around the Premier League. I absolutely agree with you that players should not be able to bet on matches. The punishment these players receive seems reasonable as it means they miss out on playing for a long time. Clubs could probably do more to educate their players not to bet on games.
