Photo: Clive Rose/Getty Images
You suspect that Nottingham Forest would have followed the performances of Brentford's reserve side with some trepidation. There was a 2-2 draw in a friendly against Como and a 5-1 win over Southampton Under-23s last Saturday.
Ivan Toney scored in the first and got a hat trick in the second. B-team football is not Premier League football, but the suggestion is that the England striker is in good form and ready for his comeback after an eight-month ban for breaching gambling rules.
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Forest could feel that the fixture list was a little unkind to them. If they had gone into the other half of the winter break and played the game this weekend, Toney would not have been available. And this is a pretty crucial game: a six-pointer for sides looking a little anxiously over their shoulders, wondering whether Luton are better than everyone thought. Why couldn't they have played injury-ravaged Brentford, who have lost five in a row in the league this weekend?
But that's to treat Toney's return as a sporting issue - and it is, but it's also about something much more important. The reaction when Toney was banned seemed generally sympathetic, as it should be for an addict, and apparently reflected a more general unease about the prevalence of gambling within football.
People will take different moral positions, but in Britain sports betting is legal. Many people love gambling and for many sports such as horse racing and greyhound racing are unthinkable without it. Some people suffer from crippling addiction and deserve support. But just as the existence of alcoholics does not lead to serious calls for a blanket ban on booze, the presence of compulsive gamblers should not lead to a blanket ban on gambling.
Regardless of anything else, history suggests that betting is impossible to ban, that it will continue despite legislation against it - and it is not legitimate bookmakers who arrange matches or send someone in to break debtors' fingers.
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In a competition where gambling is as common as the Premier League, betting paradoxically serves as a hedge against manipulation. Bookmakers have their margins and make money if the sport is fair. Their algorithms recognize suspicious patterns and trigger alerts accordingly, leading to the investigation into Oxford United's FA Cup match against Arsenal a year ago after unusual amounts were put on a certain player to be booked, although the FA ultimately took no action undertook. .
But that does not mean that everything is going well when it comes to betting and football. Numerous investigations have revealed bookmakers deliberately targeting vulnerable individuals, fueling addiction. The examples of dubious foreign gambling companies sponsoring clubs through registration in the Isle of Man are an obvious problem.
Then there are problems surrounding advertising. Especially given how easy it is to bet online or through an app, an addict should be able to watch sports without being constantly stimulated to get excited; No one would think it's a good idea to wave an open bottle of whiskey under the nose of an alcoholic a few times a week. Restrictions on sponsorship, television advertising in the immediate build-up and visible advertising during matches seem reasonable.
Whether that would fall under the remit of the proposed football regulator, the Football Association or the Gambling Commission, it is something that needs urgent attention. But that does not absolve the players of their responsibility. If football is to have an open, regulated relationship with gambling, there must be strict liability - and that means long-term bans on footballers caught placing bets. Most professions - even journalism - have their codes of conduct; this is just part of football - and has been that way for some time.
Toney's lawyers claimed the striker had only realized when he joined Brentford in September 2020 and saw a video that he might be in trouble. Although his cousin was charged with breaching gambling rules in 2017 and admitted he remembered the FA explaining the rules when he was in Peterborough, the committee that imposed the ban concluded he was aware of the rules. Regardless, his case should remind players and clubs how important these rules are, not only to the integrity of the game, but also to the perception of integrity.
Whether Toney sees that is another matter. His complaints about the timing of his case and the length of his ban sit uncomfortably against his insistence that a lesson has been learned and that he takes full responsibility. It also sits alongside the two times he was recorded dissing Brentford to create a less than flattering image of entitlement.
Toney has certainly expressed his gratitude for the way Brentford have supported him while he has served his suspension, with the strong implication being that he has no intention of moving this month. Given that his contract expires in June 2025, things may be different in the summer, but it seems very ungrateful to take eight months' wages while he is unavailable due to his own actions, then immediately jump ship when he is available to play again.
That's good news for Brentford, who were having a decent season until Bryan Mbeumo was injured against Brighton in the first of those five consecutive defeats, leaving them short of attacking options. But this is likely to be less good news for Arsenal and Chelsea, two sides seemingly in need of a centre-forward with a proven track record of goals in the Premier League, who may well have found room to play within the profit and sustainability rules . to pay for him. In any case, Brentford's distress in the second half of this season and the potential financial consequences of relegation will have pushed his price to a level that is almost certainly not worth it.
And here we go again, inevitably returning to what this means on the pitch and what that means for the balance sheet. Toney's is a football story, but it is also about much wider issues about how football interacts with the wider world.