It’s draconian that all bets are off
Graeme Macpherson What’s the score?
IF football has a gambling problem, it is entirely of its own making. Placing a bet is as much a part of the game as a pre-match pint or a half-time pie and Bovril, an established part of the matchday routine. The modern gambler likes to bet online, while the traditionalist still makes time to visit the local bookies on their way to the ground, small red pen behind the ear, carefully considering their selections. Questioning the appropriateness of the relationship between sport and betting is to decry the very essence of what it means to be a British football fan.
It is the average fan’s fondness for a bet – nothing else – that entices bookmakers to pour millions of pounds into the game year on year. Hence Scottish football now has the William Hill Scottish Cup, Ladbrokes’ sponsorship of the four senior divisions, and the Betfred League Cup. Their interest is about attempting to build brand awareness and persuading customers to leave one firm for another, rather than trying to lure the uninitiated into gambling for the first time. There is nothing untoward about bookmakers’ interest in football, and nothing inappropriate in return about football’s stakeholders accepting that investment. It is a partnership that makes sense on a number of levels. The complication, of course, arises when those inside the game are found to be fond of a punt. Joey Barton’s recent 18-month playing ban for betting on matches was the most high-profile of recent cases, while in Scotland Annan chairman Henry McClelland and Inverness Caledonian Thistle player Lewis Horner both found themselves under the spotlight, too, on similar charges.
First of all, rules are rules. Those connected to clubs in any regard – whether they are players, managers or directors – are forbidden from betting on football matches anywhere in the world. That is a message that has been hammered home repeatedly. If you break those regulations, there can be little sympathy regarding the repercussions. The blanket ban on betting on all professional matches, however, seems unnecessarily draconian. Yes, there is a fear about the creeping influence of match fixing and that those not on the largest of salaries may be the most susceptible. Those are matters that need to be carefully monitored. But denying those in the game – who have made a living out of it largely because they enjoy football with the same passion and enthusiasm as the man in the street – the chance to have a recreational bet seems wholly unnecessary.
Within reason, of course. Betting against your own team – whether the player is actually involved in the match in question or not – is a definite no-no. That is something that goes completely against the spirit of the game and places into doubt the validity of the contest. Without the conviction that every game is decent and honest, there is little point in proceeding at all.
Beyond that, there is a fear that insider knowledge could give players or coaches some sort of advantage when placing a bet, the irony being that bookmakers employ thousands of people to extract that same level of information.
It is perhaps overstating how much any dressing-room insight can influence a bet – from bitter experience, working in football does not necessarily equate to gaining knowledge that may help estimate the outcome of a match – but a case could be made for a ruling that states that players and officials cannot bet on any competitions involving their own clubs.
And that should be that. Why a player from Albion Rovers or a coach from Cowdenbeath can’t have a few quid on
Banning an Albion Rovers player from putting a few quid on a Champions League tie is over the top
a Champions League tie, for example, without fear of sanction, is illogical and over the top. Should the blanket ban be lifted, the hope would have to be that most footballers are sensible enough to stay away from those games in which they are personally involved, and bet only on those in which they are enjoying – like the rest of us – solely as an outsider and as a football fan.
Of course, the more serious side to all of this is when gambling becomes an addiction. That, like alcoholism or drug dependency, is an illness and ought to be treated with the most serious of care. Betting as an addiction can be a destructive force, and those in the grip of it can lose everything with one more football coupon or one last betting slip.
When footballers develop a gambling addiction, it is not because they have become brainwashed by bookmakers’ advertising but because, underneath their high-profile veneer, they are as vulnerable as the rest of us to life’s many and varied temptations. Some, sadly, succumb more easily than others.
Those, mercifully, are extreme cases. It is disingenuous to the rest of society to suggest that gambling is a wholly negative or dangerous pursuit. Many football fans bet moderately, with most taking a philosophical, Kipling-esque attitude to winning and losing. To demonise gambling per se serves no good at all. Scottish football struggles enough for investment without turning our backs on those willing to support the game financially. If there is a problem it stems from the rules, not the pastime itself.