Andros Townsend Charged With Breach Of FA Betting Regulations

So, this is disappointing.

Tottenham midfielder Andros Townsend has been charged in relation to alleged breaches of misconduct & betting rules the-fa.com/g9ivdo

— The FA (@FA) May 24, 2013

The rule in question that Andros is stated to have violated is E8(b), which the FA rulebook delineates thusly:

A Participant shall not use, or provide to any other person any information relating to football which the Participant has by virtue of his or her position within the game and which is not publicly available for, or in relation to, betting.

The wording above indicates that Andros has been pulled up for providing insider information, consciously or otherwise, for betting purposes. This, to me, sounds on the surface like a potentially very serious transgression, even if Andros' decision to leak whatever the information in question was intended innocuously. It also means the youngster will now be withdrawn from England's squad for the U21 World Cup, which is of course a massive shame considering how influential Townsend had been for Pearce's side in recent months, but looks to be the least of his worries right now. We'll share more on the repercussions of this as the news comes in.