Burnley Midfielder Joey Barton Banned for 18 Months for Betting on Games

The England FA announced that Burnley midfielder Joey Barton has been banned for 18 months and fined £30,000 for placing a large number of bets on soccer over a ten-year period, including on some of his own team's games. This likely spells the end of Barton's career, since he will be 36 years old when the ban is lifted.

According to the FA, Barton placed 1,260 bets on matches from March 2006 to May 2016, which averages out to roughly 14 bets per month of the English soccer calendar.

Barton released a statement on his website admitting to having a gambling problem but denying any match-fixing element to his betting. He claims he first opened a Betfair account in 2004, and has since placed "over 15,000 bets across a whole range of sports. Just over 1,200 were placed on football and subject to the charges against me. The average bet was just over £150, many were for only a few pounds."

He also claims that whenever he bet on his own team, he was never in the match day squad or in any position to influence the game.

Barton goes on to lament the unhealthy relationship between UK soccer and the gambling industry, adding that it's a ripe hobby for bored soccer players who have so much downtime. In all, Barton argues the 18-month ban is too severe given his addiction issues.

Barton's statement is characteristically wide-ranging and somewhat introspective, although mostly arriving at conclusions that benefit his point of view. Nevertheless, it doesn't take much to see that both sides of the argument can be true: Barton really did break a quite reasonable rule in extremely blatant fashion, and English soccer really does have an unhealthy relationship with the gambling industry. Three Premier League Clubs—West Ham, West Brom, and Stoke City—wear the names of sports betting companies on their kits. Stoke's official stadium name is Bet365 Stadium (no one calls it that). The sideline advertising boards scroll with gambling advertisements for much of every game.

Even if you accept Barton's claim that he never bet on a game he could influence, what he did is still akin to insider trading, since he placed more than 1,200 bets on outcomes in an industry he works in, knows intimately, and has access to non-public information regarding. The UK's insider trading laws are far broader than America's. You don't need to accuse Barton of match-fixing to realize his actions were unethical beyond violating the FA's rules. But it also doesn't absolve the FA from taking a good, long look in the mirror.