Nottingham Forest defender Harry Toffolo hopes his experiences coming through mental health problems and gambling can help others tackle their own issues.
In September 2023, Toffolo was handed a suspended five-month ban after admitting 375 breaches of FA betting rules and was also fined just under £21,000. The investigation related to his time as a young player at Norwich and took in loan spells at Swindon, Rotherham, Peterborough and Scunthorpe between 2014 and 2017.
According to an independent regulatory commission, Toffolo’s deteriorating mental health and belief his football career was over were “very substantial mitigation” for him breaching the FA’s betting rules at that time.
The commission found Toffolo began placing bets on football, as well as other sports, when he was 18 and stopped at 21, with stakes “generally small”. Those included two 25p wagers on himself to score in the 2015 League One play-off final at Wembley for Swindon, who lost 4-0 to Preston.
The 28-year-old told BBC Radio Nottingham of how he felt “mortified and ashamed” when he received an e-mail from the FA outlining the breaches, which saw him drop to the floor in a “full-on panic attack” as he “felt like I lost everything”.
Toffolo faced mental health struggles and loneliness during his spells away from Norwich, later moving to Millwall in 2018 and then Lincoln before joining Huddersfield during January 2020.
Having signed for Forest in July 2022, the defender helped them win promotion in the the Championship play-off final under former boss Steve Cooper and has since gone on to play regular Premier League football.
Toffolo is now an ambassador of Tricky to Talk, which is a club community trust programme aimed at getting people to speak openly about their mental health.
“Some people might get down by it (the FA’s disciplinary process), but I feel like I have more energy from it,” Toffolo said in an interview with BBC East Midlands Today.
“I feel strong, but I also feel a sense of responsibility now to try help and hope it never happens again to anybody else.
“It’s now down to me as a person to say ‘what can I do to help, how can I protect my children from putting them in this position?’. I feel inspired by it.
“Every day for five months, it was just about getting through them one by one.
“I got through it and my career has never been at such a high than it has been in the past two or three months.
“I feel the most complete I have ever felt in my life at this moment in time, on the basis that I feel I have almost nothing to lose because I thought I had lost everything.
“I feel extremely humbled that I have the opportunity to keep playing.
“I just go out there and I fight for the fans and fight for my family because I’m sitting here now and I’m extremely grateful to even have this opportunity to talk about it.”
Bristol City Women 0-4 Man City Women: Hosts relegated as Fowler double inspires WSL leaders
Mary Fowler scored twice to set WSL leaders Manchester City on their way to a 4-0 rout of Bristol City, who suffered relegation as a result, on Sunday.
With Arsenal having drawn with Everton earlier in the day, Man City knew a victory would be enough to take the title race down to two teams.
That victory duly arrived in emphatic fashion, with all four of Man City's goals arriving in the second half.
Fowler's fantastic strike opened the scoring in the 62nd minute, with the Australia international doubling her tally soon after, paving the way for an Amy Rodgers own goal and Alex Greenwood's late header to seal a huge victory.
Arsenal are now out of the title race, with Chelsea - who have two games in hand on Gareth Taylor's team - the only side capable of catching Man City.
The Robins, meanwhile, will be playing in the second tier again next term.
Data Debrief: Bristol heading down with a whimper
Bristol City have failed to score in their last five games in the WSL, a run of 544 minutes without a goal.
They mustered just 0.09 expected goals (xG) to Man City's 3.4, with the visitors having now kept a clean sheet in nine of their 20 league games this season.
De Rossi demands more from 'tired' Roma ahead of crunch run
Daniele De Rossi acknowledged his Roma team may be tired, but he insisted they must not allow themselves to be embarrassed.
Roma fought back to draw 2-2 with last season's Serie A champions Napoli in a pulsating fixture on Sunday.
Tammy Abraham's late header secured a point for De Rossi's team, who took the lead through Paulo Dybala's penalty before going behind to goals from Matias Olivera and Victor Osimhen.
With Serie A set to have five teams in the Champions League next season, Roma occupy fifth spot with four matches remaining, but sixth-placed Atalanta are just two points behind with a game in hand.
There is also the small matter of a Europa League semi-final against Bundesliga champions Bayer Leverkusen on the cards over the coming weeks, and De Rossi set the stall out.
"We drew, it is not a result to throw away, but it is not the result or the performance that we wanted," Roma coach Daniele De Rossi told Sky Sports Italia.
"At times you can steal the ball off Napoli, but we then gave it back again too many times. Napoli had a lot of chances in the first half, we did better in the second, but we have to do better.
"Look, we are tired, but we cannot start thinking that we’re tired and that means we can be embarrassed in the final few weeks of the season."
Roma host Leverkusen on Thursday before taking on Juventus on May 5, with a crunch clash against Atalanta – who are also into the Europa League semi-finals – set to follow after the away leg against Xabi Alonso's team.
Key to a successful end to the campaign for Roma will be keeping Dybala fit. The Argentine has been involved in the joint-most goals (12) in Serie A since the turn of the year, scoring nine and setting up three, level with Juve's Dusan Vlahovic.
PSG's latest Ligue 1 title arrives as Monaco lose to Lyon
Paris Saint-Germain have been crowned as Ligue 1 champions after Lyon overcame Monaco 3-2 on Sunday.
A 4-1 midweek win over Lorient ensured that one more victory would be enough for Luis Enrique's team to get over the line, but PSG failed to get the job done themselves when they faced relegation-threatened Le Havre on Saturday.
That game was the 700th match of the QSI era at PSG, and the club's 1,900th in France's top flight.
However, PSG's wait to win their third straight title did not last long, as less than 24 hours later, Lyon – who will face the Parisians in the final of the Coupe de France at the end of May – came out on top in a topsy turvy encounter with second-placed Monaco.
Substitute Malick Fofana was the matchwinner for Lyon, and ultimately the player who handed the title to PSG.
Wissam Ben Yedder had put Monaco ahead in the opening minute, but quickfire goals from Alexandre Lacazette and Said Benrahma turned the match on its head before half-time.
Ben Yedder netted his second to restore parity on the hour mark, and thought he had sealed his hat-trick when he volleyed in from a free-kick, only to have strayed offside.
With only a win good enough for Monaco to stay in the fight, the visitors were then caught out in the 84th minute, with Fofana racing onto Lacazette's throughball and finishing calmly.
After a dismal start to the season, relegation looked a real possibility for Lyon, but they are now, with three games remaining, still in with a shout of qualifying for Europe.
PSG on the other hand now have 12 Ligue 1 titles to their name, with 10 of those coming under QSI's ownership. Aside from the COVID-impacted 2019-20 season, five of their last six league titles have been secured before the start of May.
It also means Luis Enrique remains in the running for a treble in his first season at the club, with PSG taking on Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League semi-finals next week.
SportsMax is the Caribbean sports channel of choice, committed to providing sporting content of the highest quality to the Caribbean, delivered by a team of highly innovative, passionate and qualified professionals.
(876) 619-7629
digitalmedia@sportsmax.tv
