Professional Footballers’ Association to Institute Blanket Ban on Gambling by Employees

Written by :

Alistair Prescott

Published on :

12 November, 2013

The Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA) will no longer permit its employees to gamble following the embarrassment that came about with revelations that union chief executive Gordon Taylor placed more than £4million on 2,000 bets. He’s also is reported to owe at least one bookmaker over £100,000.

The action is being implemented for the ‘integrity of the union’.

Speaking to the SportsMail, former chairman Clarke Carlisle said:

‘As a union we then discussed whether gambling for any PFA employee should be totally off-limits. That is something that we are going to introduce to safeguard the integrity of the union.

‘The players will still conform to Premier League, Uefa and FIFA rules. We’re talking about as an organisation. When you work for the PFA you do have access to every member.

'The likelihood of that being utilised in any way is incredibly low, but we don’t want to give anyone any reason to question our integrity.

‘We feel the step should be made - that employees refrain from gambling on football. Everybody is completely on board with that.’