Beating the bookies Non-league footballer fined £48k for bets

A NON-LEAGUE footballer has been handed the kind of FA fine normally dished out to Premier League stars after admitting placing almost a thousand bets on football matches over his ten-year career.

- Tristan CORK

James Byrne in action for Mangotsfield Town

But because James Byrne was so good at beating the bookies he ended up winning almost £50,000 over the years he has been ordered to pay a fine equal to the amount he won.

The fine of £48.388.66 is believed to be the biggest fine ever given to a player in Step 4 of the English non-league pyramid system, and ranks alongside the kinds of fines given out in much more high profile cases involving footballers caught gambling, including England internationals Ivan Toney and Kieran Trippier.

But while a fine in the tens of thousands represents less than a week's earnings for many Premier League stars, the £48,000 fine for Portishead Town's 29-year-old midfielder is roughly 500 times his weekly pay for playing in the Southern League Division One South.

After hearing Byrne had won and spent the £48,000 over the ten years as he raked it in, the FA have offered the possibility of a payment plan, but if every penny he earns from playing football goes into paying the fine he'd need to carry on playing at that level for another ten years.