Look real quick playa Daniel Sturridges betting messages that led to a ban

June 08, 2024

When Daniel Sturridge told his brother Leon, “Put the grand on Sevilla I’ll give it to you back if you lose”, he would not have expected that message to still have ramifications on his career more than two years on. But that message, sent on January 19, 2018, when he was exploring a move away from Liverpool, was part of the FA’s case against him for breaching betting rules. It has cost him the second half of this season, and ended his spell at Trabzonspor.

Nine days after sending that message, Sturrdige was close to a move to West Brom and told his friend Daniel Hemmings “Look real quick playa” and “It’s worth a flutter”. Those messages were central to a charge that the FA has finally proven against Sturridge, at the second time of asking.

Because while Sturridge initially received a six-week ban — four of which were suspended — from an independent regulatory commission in July 2019, the FA took the unusual step of appealing against their decision to an independent appeal board. In a decision announced on Monday afternoon, the appeal board agreed with the FA: upholding two more charges against Sturridge that had been initially dismissed and agreeing that the initial sanction was too lenient.

Now Sturridge is banned from all football for four months and has had his fine doubled to £150,000.

By publishing their written reasons for the heavier punishment, the appeal board has revealed just how much money was gambled by Sturridge’s friends, family and associates on various possible January moves, whether to Inter Milan or Sevilla, who were initially interested, or subsequently to West Bromwich Albion. It will make embarrassing reading for Sturridge’s close circle but it is also critical of the initial regulatory commission finding which let Sturridge off lightly.

The published written reasons reveal — following co-operation between the authorities and betting companies — how much money was bet by those close to Sturridge on various potential moves. The report gives a full account of the bets that were placed or attempted but they included the following: On 17 January 2018, Anthon Walters, a relative of Sturridge, bet £10,000 on a move to Inter Milan, after Paddy Power rejected his initial bet of £13,830.

On the evening of 28 January, after Sturridge had spoken to West Brom manager Alan Pardew, Anthon attempted to bet £3,000 at 66/1 on Sturridge moving there, but Paddy Power rejected it. Soon after Naomi Thorpe, an acquaintance of Leon Sturridge, Daniel’s brother, had her own £1,000 bet rejected too. “It was accepted by Leon in his evidence that this attempt to bet by her was at his instigation,” the report states. The next day, when odds of Sturridge joining West Brom had come in to 3/1, Anthon called Paddy Power to ask what the maximum available stake he could bet on Sturridge moving there was, and soon after he bet £100.

The challenge for the FA was proving that its rules on this were broken, and the existence of what was known as a “family agreement” to make money from betting using information from Sturridge (“the Respondent”). “In effect, the FA was seeking to establish something akin to a conspiracy between members of the Respondent’s family with a view to making substantial sums of money from betting,” the appeal board says. “The central point stressed by the FA was that each of the Respondent and his immediate family knew exactly what the others were doing or were likely to do.”

The independent regulatory commission that sat last year found proven only two of the nine charges (charges 3 and 4) that Sturridge faced. They related to Sturridge messaging his brother Leon on 19 January, when Sevilla looked like his likeliest destination, “Put the grand on Sevilla I’ll give it to you back if you lose”. That bet however was never placed. Later that day, when Leon told Daniel Sturridge that odds on his move to Sevilla were 4/1, Daniel replied “It’ll be higher elsewhere”, “Find it and put it on”, and “I can’t see me going anywhere else.”

However this year’s appeal board also found two other charges against Sturridge to be proven, upholding parts of the FA’s appeal. One charge related to those discussions between Daniel and Leon Sturridge on January 19 concerning a possible move to Sevilla, which the FA argued “constituted inside information”.

The other charge that was found proven related to Sturridge’s messages with friend Daniel Hemmings on January 28, when he was close to his move to West Bromwich Albion. In an exchange of messages between Sturridge and Hemmings about the odds on his moving to West Brom, Sturridge wrote “Look real quick playa”, then “Odds too short fam”, then, roughly an hour later, having seen longer odds on the move, “It’s worth a flutter”. While the regulatory commission “accept[ed] Mr Sturridge’s evidence that [these] were throw away remarks”, the appeal board did not.

“In our view, it was not a plausible explanation of the Respondent’s use of the phrase “look real quick playa” that it was related to his desire for information on how the market viewed the likelihood of him moving to West Brom,” the board wrote, “even allowing for the fact that Troy Deeney was or may have been a potential rival for West Brom’s interest.” The board continues that they found it “impossible to accept” that these messages were “throwaway remarks”.

Having upheld four rather than two charges against Sturridge, the appeal board decided to ban Sturridge from all football-related activity from March 2 to June 17 2020, as well as double the fine. Explaining its decision to give a much more draconian punishment, the board wrote: “Such flagrant breaches of the Rules called for sanctions which combined punishment, deterrence and prevention. They also called for sanctions which made it clear to the public that the Regulatory Commission was intent upon protecting the integrity of the sport.”

Responding to the decision in an online video, Sturridge said that he was “absolutely gutted” to have been banned for the rest of the season, and that the initial punishment of the regulatory commission had been upgraded. “Although the appeal panel had recognised I hadn’t bet, I was still charged,” Sturridge said. “It is very disappointing and upsetting to hear the appeal panel had overturned the original, highly qualified panel’s ruling. It is devastating for me and I am absolutely gutted about it.”

So Sturridge has decided to cancel his contract with Trabzonspor given that he cannot play again until the summer. “I don’t think it’s acceptable for me to accept wages from a team I can’t contribute to due to being banned,” he said. “I’ve come to a mutual agreement with Trabzonspor to mutually terminate my contract.”

When Sturridge signed for Trabzonspor last August, there was hope on the Black Sea that the former England international would provide the goals to propel them to their first Turkish title since 1984. But it did not turn out like that. There is a sense of disappointment at the club that the player they invested so much in ultimately delivered so little.

Sturridge’s Trabzonspor contract gave him a signing bonus of €2 million after tax and an annual net salary of €1.5 million. Trabzonspor have paid big salaries in recent history: Burak Yilmaz was on €3.5 million after his return to Turkey from China in 2017, while Florent Malouda, Oscar Cardozo and Dame N’Doye each earned roughly €2.5 million in recent years. While the new president has tried to restrict salaries — Trabzonspor is not one of Turkey’s richest clubs — he has pushed the boat out for Sturridge and Argentine midfielder Jose Sosa, formerly of Bayern Munich and Napoli.

But while Sosa is well-settled into Turkish life, having spent two years at Besiktas and now in his third in Trabzon, Sturridge never did. Club staff noted how he lived in a hotel in the city, rather than ever moving into his own place. They did not think he was ever fully fit. And so when it came to picking the team, Alexander Sorloth would tend to get the nod. Sorloth, on loan from Crystal Palace, does not have the experience or profile of Sturridge but he has lit up Turkish football this year with a remarkable 19 goals from 23 league starts.

Sturridge, in contrast, never really got going. He leaves having started just seven league games — 11 league appearances in total — scoring four times. But with Sorloth leading the line and Tony Nwakaeme and Caleb Ekupan either side, there was no real place for Sturridge in the team. It did not help that the club felt he could not press properly and help the team without the ball.

And in his last game for the club — a 2-2 draw with Besiktas the weekend before last — he was taken off early in the second half. Fans and local paper “Haber61” (“61 Hours”) were losing faith in him, and expected him to leave the club for MLS, but none of them would have expected his time in Turkey to end like this.

(Photo: Hakan Burak Altunoz/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

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