Matthew Benham
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StevieSteve
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StevieSteve
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Guildford Bee
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Matthew Benham
We didn’t beat them though and I don’t think there’s any issue with they way they’ve treated us as a club.
He’s got to be talking about Burnley
ITK
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Matthew Benham
We are playing a pre season friendly against Brighton. So wouldn’t think things are that bad.
Hungerford Bee
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Matthew Benham
"About 30 seconds from the end I realise, ‘sh*t, they’re not going to have time to score and then score again’."
That was exactly how I felt on 29 May last year. Absolute wreck for the 95 minutes before that.
That was exactly how I felt on 29 May last year. Absolute wreck for the 95 minutes before that.
Untouchable
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Matthew Benham
Yep. I relaxed slightly after the red card but it wasn’t until about 3 minutes into extra time that I knew it was job done.
SmiffyBee
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Idaho Bee
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Matthew Benham
Interesting to read how much agony he goes through watching a match. "after 5 minutes in he's thinking, at least in 2 hours this will all be over".
Amazing. In 60 years of watching I never thought like that.
Amazing. In 60 years of watching I never thought like that.
badgerbee
Mafeking Avenue........gets you there!!!!
Matthew Benham
Really??!!
I'm like that for pretty much every game....
And watching games on iFollow during lockdown made it even worse!!! ??
OP
OP
Les Beeavinu
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Matthew Benham
I've always found the really big games hard to watch. Swansea was probably one of the easiest.
rebus
On my final warning
NorthamptonBee
Yes Boss
Matthew Benham
I can’t believe how relaxed I felt for the Swansea game, ht was weird, 2 up and talking to a ring of people I hadn’t seen for donks and not twitch in sight amongst us.
wibs
Well-known member
Matthew Benham
Yeah it was strange. I've never felt more at ease and comfortable before and during a match than that game.
I think we were all well aware how sh*t Swansea were!
Isleworth_Bee
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Isleworth_Bee
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SC
Active member
Matthew Benham
When I saw the refs hand go up with the red card, I could not believe it! 2-0 up and Swansea down to ten men, 35 mins to go, that’s it we are in the Prem…..
Then I started to imagine the Sky Sports News coverage “2 nil down with ten minutes to go but the Swans responded with one of the greatest comebacks in sporting history and then Andre Ayew scored the final penalty in front of their ecstatic fans to take them back to the promised land’ with Sky then playing a montage of Bees fans with “Stop Crying Your Heart Out” in the background…..
But apparently Carlsberg do play-off finals!
mhead bee
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Matthew Benham
Jesus, I was the complete opposite. My resting heart rate is 45, my heart rate went up to 80 when Ivan scored the penalty against Bournemouth and stayed there for two weeks as I could feel something was going to happen,
I had pure anxiety leading into the final game, utterly petrified, I swore I wouldn’t go to another play off because I couldn’t walk out of Wembley a loser again especially to that lot. But how can you not go, it’s what we do,
My heart rate hit 120 and stayed that way until the final whistle, I wasn’t going to wear my shirt as I thought every time I have worn it we have lost but I changed my mind last minute and put it on.
At 2.0 and the red card I was the same as Mathew, all I could think was how awful it would be if this didn’t work out. It was about 2 mins into injury time I turned my son and said, I think we are going to do it.
I barely celebrated at the end, I just watched with a strange feeling. It was only watching it back at least a hundred times over that I got emotional, it’s the second goal that gets me every time. We often go 1.0 up and still lose, going 2.0 up was unprecedented.
BURFORD BEE
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Matthew Benham
I would have thought the exact opposite?
Anyway the beers catspiss!
stomalomalus
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Matthew Benham
So it's individuals connected to Burnley and Watford. Tarkowski, perhaps? You could make a case for half of them... And who from Watford?
BFC1997
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Matthew Benham
You’d say maybe Leeds would be one, but then we didn’t beat them last season.
Everton, perhaps? Moyes-gate after the cup match in 2010, Firework-gate before the away game and Lampard’s involvement in Duane Holmes-gate can’t have done much to foster a good relationship between the clubs.
I doubt West Ham would be one, I’m pretty sure Giles had no criticism over their dealings with us for Benrahma and we had them over for a friendly last summer.
Burnley too, it seems like a long time ago we sold them Tarkowski.
AB
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Matthew Benham
I don’t think Burnley did anything wrong and it was Tarkowski’s behaviour that was the problem. The big hug he shared with Peter G after the match at BCS suggests that we as fans were more upset by that than the club was.
It’s possible the bad experiences with clubs were more on players we didn’t get/sell than ones we did. Or be ones we never saw anything much wrong about from the outside (eg perhaps Norwich over Sergi).
Newport Pagnell Bee
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OP
OP
Les Beeavinu
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Matthew Benham
FA accused of ‘double standard’ in allowing club owners to bet on football while banning players
Exclusive: Brentford owner made money on bets in own name through secretive FA agreement
www.theguardian.com
Silly Hat
Purveyor of (mostly) absolute nonsense
Matthew Benham
In the long history of Grauniad ‘journalism’ this piece happily ranks up there as one of the biggest non-stories ever ?FA accused of ‘double standard’ in allowing club owners to bet on football while banning players
Exclusive: Brentford owner made money on bets in own name through secretive FA agreement
“According to evidence seen by the Guardian, some of the wagers are placed in Benham’s own name. Separate evidence seen by the Guardian shows that MSPP Admin placed frequent bets on football matches around the world in its own company name, some as recently as autumn 2022. None was on matches in the UK”.
and
“The FA is understood to have made inquiries about whether Benham placed bets in his name within the UK. However, there is no suggestion that the syndicate has bet on Brentford, the Premier League or competitions in which the club is involved”.
So MB may be part of a syndicate that might bet on, say, SuperSport FC vs Mamelodi Sundowns….
Er…..that’s it. That’s the ‘story’.
?
Matthew Benham
Yep. All above board and in line with the FA's own policy.
The Guardian does have a point that the FA's policy isn't published however.
Matthew Benham
FA accused of double standards on betting rules for players and owners
The FA has been accused of double standards for banning footballers who bet on football but allowing an effective exemption to some club owners for their companies to be involved in betting activity.
www.thetimes.co.uk
The FA has been accused of double standards for banning footballers who bet on football but allowing an effective exemption to some club owners for their companies to be involved in betting activity.
Brentford’s striker Ivan Toney was banned for eight months for betting but the club’s owner, Matthew Benham, can take advantage of special FA rules that allow a betting syndicate he is involved with to continue to bet on football matches.
The FA has always kept the rules secret but The Times revealed them in 2018, including that the club owner’s company can still continue to be involved in football gambling if the owner or director agrees to an annual independent audit. They must also sign an annual declaration that they have complied with the rules which state they cannot use inside information or bet on the same competition the club is in. The FA can also demand the betting company’s records at any time.
The Guardian has reported that Benham is involved in a UK-based gambling syndicate called MSPP Admin which has bet on football matches outside Britain. A spokesman for Benham said he abides by all FA betting rules.
Clive Betts MP, chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on football, told The Guardian: “It seems contradictory and very unfair if footballers are being pursued, in many cases quite rightly, but owners who are in a more senior position get away with what appears to be similar activity.”
The FA insisted it had “a stringent policy in place for any participant who has a significant interest in both a football club and a betting company” and that it would take “appropriate disciplinary action” if its rules are breached.
The FA’s exemption previously allowed the firm Starlizard, which was set up by Brighton & Hove Albion’s chairman Tony Bloom, to continue to bet on football matches.
The FA’s rules state: “The participant will provide, or procure provision of, any relevant records of the betting company when so requested by the FA (in such circumstances, it is for the FA to determine the nature and extent of any relevant records required for disclosure).
“The participant must not have direct involvement in the setting of odds, determining of markets or the selection or placing of individual bets on football by the betting company [or] pass on any information that they become party to as a result of their position in football but which is not publicly available at that time.”
Matthew Benham
So it would seem that by not betting on the PL (as reported is the case by The Guardian) then Benham/Smartodds are not breaching any rules that have been agreed with the FA (as reported by The Times)
Case Closed ?️
Case Closed ?️
Edmundo
Whinging pom
Balders Bee
Active member
Matthew Benham
Exactly this. Club owner complies with all appropriate rules and regulations shocker so we'll conflate with the wider moral argument about Gambling in Football and try to create a bit of click-bait interest.So it would seem that by not betting on the PL (as reported is the case by The Guardian) then Benham/Smartodds are not breaching any rules that have been agreed with the FA (as reported by The Times)
Case Closed ?️
savvy 2210
Active member
Matthew Benham
How strange it all is. It comes down to me the good old ' white collar and Blue collar ' arrangements. They sure put a bit of fat in the fire with this revelation. I do wonder if the teams the players bet on were in the the same division. Of course it didn't matter. This to me stinks to high heaven. How he can look Tony in the eye is beyond me.
Doovster
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Matthew Benham
Yup, I reckon those 50K wages plus weekly bonuses MB effectively pays Ivan as a result of his business giving him the revenues to have built Brentford into the club we are today must sit uncomfortably with Ivan and MB.
Plus the fact that MB hasn't broken the rules whereas Ivan did.
Bigruss
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Matthew Benham
Being as MB has broken no rules, and pays IT a sh!t load of money, even though he can’t do the job he’s paid for for 8 months, I’d have thought eye contact would be quite easy for MB. IT however….
BURFORD BEE
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difford
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Matthew Benham
I wonder where all the owners at a fans owned club - for example AFC Wimbledon - sit with the rules, which seem to expressly imply an 'owner' can't bet on on a football match that the club they own is involved in or the competition it plays in. Doubt there's much point Corals putting out the coupons in the Plough Lane branch as so many of the owner fans can't use them..... oh....
Football governance is in such a mess over betting
Football governance is in such a mess over betting
Matthew Benham
Can MB via the syndicate, bet on the championship while we are in the premier league? It seems so
But IT can’t bet on the championship?
If so The rules are murky.
It seems it allows companies to bring their money into the Premier league, but then protects the game by preventing betting within the game.
But IT can’t bet on the championship?
If so The rules are murky.
It seems it allows companies to bring their money into the Premier league, but then protects the game by preventing betting within the game.
Matthew Benham
Seems to be the rules are very clear. Just that IT didn't understand a very simple rule.
Matthew Benham
Agree my wording wasn’t quite right. The rules are very clear and IT didn’t follow the rules
But the rules are designed to bring money into the game
detours
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Matthew Benham
Tbh I am uneasy about the fact that there does seem to be a shady deal made with the football establishment (ie club owners) to prevent them being penalised for things that the lower echelons of football would be... even if that includes our owner.
That being said, our owner is a bloody saint compared to the rogues gallery who own most of the teams in this country.
Gambling, while not being wonderful, ranks extremely vanilla on the "how did the owner acquire their millions" spectrum next to the gangsters, oligarchs, dictatorships and Generally Unpleasant People™.
savvy 2210
Active member
Matthew Benham
Seems the rules are not clear. If someone can be allowed to bet with special agreement, kept very quiet. Why the special agreement. No betting to me is no betting, no exclusions, no matter who you are.
Matthew Benham
Because then Benham, Bloom and the Bet365 company would have to sell their football clubs that they owned far in advance of these rules being introduced.
If there are a very small number of such clubs that are audited and have to have sufficient controls in place, then I'm not sure that there is a problem in these 3 cases. The alternative is a very expensive legal bill for all parties involved. Why bother with that when a agreement can be put in place that all clubs are party too?
No idea why it's a secret agreement, but The Times have effectively told us all what it is anyone. Plus all PL clubs are party to that agreement.
savvy 2210
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Matthew Benham
So with the explanation above their all in it. To say I'm not impressed is putting it mildly. What other little side deals are going on. One that springs to me and always has, how few footballers are done for doping.
Must not upset the apple cart. There's money to be made.
Must not upset the apple cart. There's money to be made.