Betting Scandal

Apologies for the lack of recent posts, but it is the Easter holidays and I'm spending a few days with my son and not focusing too much on investing.

I did read earlier in the week that five players have been charged by the Football Association for breaching betting rules, with some accused of gambling "thousands of pounds". I can't say I have any sympathy with someone who bets against their own team to lose, but I do have some for poor Peter Cavanagh whose involvement is alleged to consist of having had a £5 accumulator bet. Hardly too serious I wouldn't have thought. It smacks of going along with the others rather than any serious crime.

I don't think footballers have ever been accused of being particularly intelligent as a group (Steve Coppell excepted), but did these saps really think that betting thousands on an Accrington Stanley v Bury game would go unnoticed?

I remember reading about the Peter Swan, Tony Kay and David Layne betting scandal of the early 1960s, which resulted in jail time and bans for the players involved. Peter Swan had played for England and could well have been one of the World Cup winning squad of 1966, but for the sake of winning £100 betting against his own Sheffield Wednesday to lose to Ipswich Town he spent four months in prison instead. Tony Kay was at one time English football's most expensive player, a tag not likely to be associated with any of the Accrington Five.