Newcastle’s Sandro Tonali charged by FA over 50 alleged breaches of betting rules

Newcastle's Sandro Tonali has been accused by The Football Association of engaging in 50 gambling violations. These charges are linked to the wagers that the Italian midfielder made after switching from Milan to Tyneside in a whopping £55m transfer in July last year.

Tonali was given a 10-month suspension by Italy's football federation for betting on Milan and Brescia matches. However, Newcastle is optimistic that he won't receive a longer ban.

The prevailing belief is that any punitive measures enforced by England's FA would most likely coincide with and apply to the existing Italian ban, considering the past events.

Although there are no certainties, it is believed that the FA will very possibly deem that Tonali has already been prevented from participating in football for an adequate amount of time. As a result, they may decide to regard the most recent group of supposed violations as a continuation of one occurrence of gambling, which has already been addressed by Italy's governing organization.

At the age of 23, the player has acknowledged that he has a problem with gambling. He is currently in rehab while serving a ban that will end on August 27th. Despite this, he has been training with the rest of the first-team squad at Newcastle and playing in closed-door friendlies. It is believed that the incidents in question occurred between August 12th and October 12th of last year, before his suspension was imposed on October 26th.

Last year, Ivan Toney, the striker for Brentford and England, was banned for eight months after violating FA's gambling regulations 232 times. He made his comeback to competitive games in January.

The FA has given Tonali a deadline of April 5th to provide a response. Newcastle made a statement on Thursday stating that Sandro is cooperating fully with the investigations and that the club is standing behind him. As the process is still ongoing, neither Sandro nor Newcastle can provide any additional comments at this moment.

In November, Dan Ashworth, who was then the sporting director of Newcastle but is now heading to Manchester United, spoke about Tonali's condition. He stated that Tonali was unwell and added that the Football Association was fully informed about the situation. The Italian ban had to be approved by the FA, so Newcastle was working closely with everyone involved in the matter.

Ashworth, who is currently taking a break from work at St James’ Park to focus on his garden, expressed surprise about Tonali’s suspension, but stressed that their priority was to take care of him and provide him with the assistance he needs.

Howe has a valid point that Newcastle's season has faced a setback due to Tonali's ban. This happened when their star summer signing had only played in 12 matches, but Howe has still shown his unwavering support for Tonali. The coach emphasized that Tonali's well-being is the top priority, stating that he is still young and needs to be considered as a human being beyond his football career.

Since football has a close connection with a betting sector that deeply participates in sponsoring teams, people are discussing whether it's right to prohibit football players who become addicted to gambling.

Paul Merson, who used to play for England and Arsenal, has come forward and confessed that he had a serious addiction to gambling while he was still an active player. He is not happy with the way Tonali's punishment has been handled and is calling it a "disgrace." Merson is of the opinion that the players need support to overcome their addiction and a 10-month ban will not help them in any way.