Joey Barton is an English professional footballer in the Premier League, who in April was banned from participating in the sport for 18 months due to betting charges by the Football Association (FA).

Barton was fined £30,000 and warned that he must not gamble on the sport in the future. Barton has now decided to speak out on the matter and claims that match-fixing is ‘rife’ in the sport of English football and that the FA is not equipped to deal with the issue.

Barton reportedly suffers from gambling addiction and claims that his career as a professional football player has essentially ended due to the length of the ban from the sport. During an interview with the Sunday Times, Barton stated that match-fixing is the real enemy and not players gambling. The football player claims that the FA is not doing their job in properly dealing with their problem.

Barton stated that the FA is oblivious to the match fixing and the fact that they did not catch on to his betting habits after 12 years shows they are not equipped to know what’s going on in the industry. The player claims he is not the only one to bet on the matches in the football industry, which of course is a breach of the new betting laws of the FA.

Back in 2014, the FA decided to create new rules in which players were banned from betting on global football matches or competitions, including the staff of football clubs. According to Barton, these rules are broken on a regular basis. The footballer says that the FA is not going to investigate because they would have to give each player 18 months and this would essentially shut down the entire sport.

For now, Barton is working on appealing the 18-month suspension he received for betting on the football matches.