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?
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.