The brother of Chelsea FC’s legend John Terry – Paul – has faced a £1,000 fine from the Football Association (FA) for breaking the country’s gambling rules. Mr Terry admitted that he had made 209 breaches of the UK betting regulations by making bets on football matches, including 35 bets on competitions his club had participated in.
The losses of the West Brom loans manager amounted to a total of £46,916. As mentioned above, the bets he made included competitions that involved his club. Despite all questions raised by his behaviour and the criticism he faced, Paul Terry claims that he had made the wagers out of boredom and he never wagered more money than he can actually lose.
Currently, not only football players but also football club employees are suspended from gambling on matches. Still, one of the two companies that Paul Terry was proved to have opened an account with shared some concerns with the Football Association in August.
According to information provided in the report compiled by the FA regulatory commission, Mr Terry placed wagers amounting to a total of £63,800.40. His overall losses generated in his gambling spree amounted to almost £47,000, as he managed to win £16,883.
Paul Terry Placed 209 Bets with Some Being Disproportionate, FA Commission Says
As mentioned above, Paul Terry was found to have placed 209 bets, with his average wager amounting to a little over £305. The figure, however, varied significantly, with a few considerably high-stake bets registered.
As revealed by the FA regulatory commission’s report, Mr Terry’s usual stakes were kept relatively low, with them ranging from £2 to £200. A few of them, however, particularly some that were placed in November 2017, could be described as extremely high. As the report reads, Paul Terry placed 12 bets, which total worth was £45,600, over an 18-day period in November 2017.
The high-stake gambling session included two £10,000-stake bets. The first one was placed on a Germany vs England friendly match, and the other one was on a Champions League match between Manchester United ad Basel. Eventually, both bets were a failure for Mr Terry, who had bet on a victory for Germany in the friendly that ended 0-0, and on a victory for Manchester United in the game that the club actually got beaten 1-0 at the Old Trafford.
The commission’s report further reads that Mr Terry claimed that he had received education on betting and had actually been aware of the gambling ban on football players and football club employees, although he had not been sure whether or not the ban applied to members of the coaching staff. He further noted that gambling had not been new to him, as he had gambled over his entire life as an adult, and explained that he had been placing bets on football matches purely out of boredom and the wagers had never been excessively large.
The Football Association, however, did not agree to these claims, describing Mr Terry’s bets as disproportionate to his income generated by his football job and reminded that he lost a considerable amount of money over quite a short period of time.
Paul Terry got his job at West Brom in July last year and is currently in charge of monitoring players while they are on loan in other clubs.
- Author
Daniel Williams
