English FA reportedly asks operators to ban bets on yellow cards
The Football Association believes such in-game betting markets are vulnerable to manipulation.
UK.- The English Football Association reportedly wants sportsbook operators to stop accepting bets on yellow cards and other in-game incidents. The request is a response to concerns about spot-fixing amid a series of high-profile cases.
Mail Sport says it has learned that FA officials have had talks with operators and the government about restrictions on betting markets offered in certain competitions. The Premier League is believed to support the call.
Some countries, including Germany and Sweden, already have complete bans on yellow card bets. In the UK, some big betting operators have stopped accepting them due to sports integrity concerns.
The FA’s apparent intervention comes as it investigates alleged suspicious betting patterns around bookings received by the Brazilian player Lucas Paqueta at West Ham in three Premier League games this year. This is the fourth high-profile investigation into yellow cards in five years, and Mail Sport says it has been told that there were more that were not made public.
No action was taken after investigations into bookings received by Granit Xhaka and Ciaran Brown, but last season, former Reading defender Kynan Isac was banned for almost 12 years for deliberately getting a yellow card. In 2018, Lincoln City’s Bradley Wood was banned for six years for deliberately getting booked in two games to try to win £10,000 on pre-arranged bets.
