sport news Ivan Toney's ban is ridiculously HARSH - it's self-defeating and tone-deaf, ... trends now

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Ivan Toney deserves to be punished for the 232 breaches of the FA’s betting rules that he has admitted to. He can hardly claim it was an isolated case. 

He has been foolish. And if fans start to doubt the integrity of a sport, either because of gambling or the use of performance-enhancing drugs, that sport dies. Look at athletics.

But the length of the ban handed down to the Brentford and England striker by the independent regulatory commission is out of all proportion to the offences. It is not just harsh. It is ridiculously harsh. 

If Toney had bet on his own team to lose, that would have warranted the swingeing sanction he has received and worse. But he did not do that.

Toney exists in a football culture where players are surrounded by advertisements and television personalities and billboards and logos on the front of their shirts telling them that gambling is OK and that it is part of the game.