The whole Tonali thing rubbed me up the wrong way because of how Newcastle handled it, sure they have to support their player etc but these are grown adults, very wealthy adults at that and they’re not stupid.
They’re very well aware of the rules and know gambling within the sport is illegal, so I find it hard to sympathise with players like Tonali and his cabal. You’ve done an illegal thing and there are consequences for it… that’s it really.
What made me laugh was Newcastle/the player angling it as an addiction problem - which it may be in some cases like Ivan Toney’s, but the majority of players get by fine without gambling as far as we know. There are rules for a reason, you already live privileges lives, why put your career or the games integrity at risk?
How do you know Toney is addicted but Tonali isn’t?
It’s your opinion and that’s fine, however, I don’t see your point.
Being a professional sportsman does not exclude you from addiction. If anything, to become a top sportsman or woman, you need some kind of addictive personality to be able to maintain the necessary drive to reach the top.
Having money does not exclude you from having an addictive personality. Particularly with gambling, the constant and easy access to plenty of money would accentuate the situation.
Being a professional male footballer, does conspire to put potential addictive personalities under a lot of pressure. Constant advertising acting as reminders, social media commentary working overtime mentioning whether you won or lost a bet for someone, etc, etc.
Every individual case is different, but having listened to some ex players (such as Hendrie and Etherington), I certainly do have some sympathy. The truth will out for Tonali and Toney, but I do sincerely hope they get the get the help they need (if they do need it).
Do you think being rich makes a person immune to addiction?
no but it certainly makes me feel infinitely less bad. he already won the lottery of life. he’s a millionaire with the dream job we all wanted. I feel much more for the broke gambler pissing his life away playing slots
They’re still people.
Addiction or not, you’re betting within something that you either have insider info (he may know something about a team / player we don’t) or you directly control (when he plays).
As someone paid millions & know how privileged you are why not get help. Why not ask? Why not go straight to a lawyer the first time? It’s impossible to think you wouldn’t be caught so why not go & get help?
These people have every thing in their life taken care of, literally have special people from the club to go set up their house bills or exclusive helpers that do their shopping. HOW would they not have someone that can help if they were actually addicted to gambling?
Boggles my mind that they do it again and again, then get caught then say ‘oh I’m addicted’ like they just realised.
sounds like such a boring existence if you ask me. I’d probably gamble too.
Out of interest, what’s your opinion on the Sturridge case? Banned for giving out privileged information but my understanding is that he was discussing with his cousin what club he might move to. Technically it was against the rules but aren’t the rules clearly wrong here?
I used to agree with you - not gambling seemed like such a small sacrifice to keep the integrity of the game. However, seeing Sturridge found guilty for discussing his future with a family member made me distrust the judgement of the FA and PL etc. It’s not about sporting integrity, it’s about protecting the financial interests of the betting companies.
And this is before getting into issues of addiction, or forcing players to endorse a product they’re not allowed to use.
Tbf I’d go the other way with this, I think it shows how much better footballers get looked after now (which yes is because they’re basically business assets), but not long ago this and other addictions were completely normal in football and would be completely taboo in most cases. I don’t buy the addiction in this case but most I do, and either way they are humans anyway addiction can come from just a couple of bad decisions, which anyone can make given circumstances.
If it’s the slot machines or poker, yes. If it’s the horses or tennis, yes. But do not bet on football and most certainly do not bet on your own games. I have no sympathy for guys betting on their own games. I don’t care if it’s for themselves to win. There’s a red line and you don’t cross it.
I don’t have sympathy for anyone with any addiction.
I don’t have sympathy for them getting consequences for it, but I do hope they can conquer their addiction and feel sad they’re struggling with it.
Being rich and famous doesn’t mean being happy or free from the flaws of a human being.
You definitely do not know what’s going on behind the scenes.
Its a kind of addiction, though i also dont have much sympathy for such behaviour.
I feel like betting on his own team to win or himself to score goals is much better than betting on himself to get a yellow card or his team to lose.
I didn’t follow the whole story but to make it short I think betting on your team winning is not immoral and shouldn’t get punished, but I get that just banning betting at all is easier rather than introducing legal loops that good lawyers can fuck with
Betting on your team means you have to play at your best, it’s not like boycotting a game so that you can earn money like a lot of people especially in Italy previously did multiple times
Obviously rules are rules and rules have been broken, all players deserve the punishment
That’s it for me, we demonise players betting but half the teams have bet sponsors, there’s betting ads in grounds, betting adverts at half time, it’s all a bit silly.
You have to be all in or all out, makes more sense to me anyway.