The Burnley midfielder has been fined £30,000 and banned from football for 18 months after admitting to The FA that he has been involved in a huge amount of football bets. Joey Barton is said to have made 1,260 bets on football matches between 26 March 2006 and 13 May 2016, something that is a seriously forbidden act for players.
Barton has stressed that “this is not match fixing” and that he has a gambling problem, claiming “I have fought addiction to gambling and provided the FA with a medical report about my problem – I’m disappointed it wasn’t taken into proper consideration”.
The player also admitted to placing bets against teams that he played for between 2004 and 2011 but insisted that they were on matches that he was not taking part in and therefore could not influence. One bet that Joey Barton placed was a £3 stake on a Premier League game in April 2006 where he bet that he would be the first goalscorer for Manchester City against Fulham, however it was his team mate Richard Dunne who scored the first goal in that game.