Sports Mole takes an in-depth look at the 10 longest bans in Premier League history following Rodrigo Bentancur’s seven-game suspension.
Not until Boxing Day will Rodrigo Bentancur be able to take to the field again, as the Tottenham Hotspur lynchpin has been slapped with a seven-match suspension for an offensive remark about teammate Son Heung-min and South Koreans.
The Uruguayan midfielder was sanctioned by the FA for what he labelled a “very bad joke” during a summer interview, in which he claimed that Son and all South Koreans “look more or less the same”.
Son accepted Bentancur’s apology, and the midfielder denied an FA charge levied against him, but an independent commission found him guilty and imposed the lengthy domestic suspension on the former Juventus man.
However, Bentancur’s seven-match suspension does not make the top 10 of the longest bans served by Premier League players, some of whom have spent months on the naughty step for doping or betting-related offences.
Here, Sports Mole counts down the 10 longest suspensions in Premier League history; note, not all of these punishments were handed down by the FA, but all players in question were playing in the Premier League at the time.
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The only player to feature twice on this list – which should come as a surprise to absolutely no one – Joey Barton saw red on the final day of the 2011-12 season at the Etihad, when his Queens Park Rangers side fell to Manchester City‘s 3-2 title-clinching win.
The midfielder was firstly sent off for an elbow to the face of Carlos Tevez before an inexcusable meltdown, in which he kneed Sergio Aguero in the back and also tried to headbutt Vincent Kompany.
Three charges of violent conduct led to a 12-match suspension for Barton, who was also stripped of the QPR captaincy and found himself £575,000 out of pocket following club and FA fines.
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One of the City contingent who celebrated the Sky Blues’ 2011-12 title win after Barton’s dismissal, Kolo Toure had previously spent half a year out of the game for failing a drugs test in 2011.
The former Arsenal man was granted a measure of leniency by the anti-doping bodies, though, as it was revealed that the banned substance stemmed from a supplement his wife was taking.
Toure risked a two-year suspension, but as the commission were satisfied that he was not attempting to gain an unfair advantage – rather trying to control his weight – he got off relatively lightly.
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Still one of the most high-profile drug cases linked to a Premier League club, Adrian Mutu had already been experiencing a turbulent relationship with then-Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho before he tested positive for cocaine in September 2004.
The Romanian playmaker was suspended for seven months and was also ordered to pay an eye-watering €17.1m – equivalent to £14.2m in 2024 – to Chelsea, who successfully sought compensation against Mutu for breaching the terms of his contract.
Unsurprisingly, Mutu never played for Chelsea again, although he was offered a lifeline by Juventus during his ban before hopping from club to club in the latter stage of his career.
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At a time when his on-field exploits in the Premier League should have been dominating the headlines, Ivan Toney was banned from domestic football for a staggering eight months in 2023 after admitting 232 breaches of the FA’s betting rules.
In offences that took place over a four-year period from 2017 to 2021, Toney bet 29 times on his own team’s matches and even backed his side to lose on 13 occasions, although he did not take part in any of those matches.
Once tipped to be at the centre of a £100m transfer battle between Arsenal and Chelsea, Brentford failed to drum up Premier League interest in Toney after his return and eventually accepted a large cheque from Saudi Pro League giants Al-Ahli.
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Forgetting your car keys when you leave the house is one thing, forgetting to attend a scheduled drugs test is a whole different kettle of fish, as Rio Ferdinand discovered during the early stages of his Manchester United career.
In September 2003, England defender was supposed to report to Carrington after training to undertake his test, but he hit the shops instead and only remembered when it was too late, thereby incurring an eight-month ban despite passing the test at a later date.
Ferdinand’s ban commenced in January 2004, ruling him out for the remainder of that season as Arsenal won the title, as well as extinguishing his chances of representing England at Euro 2004.
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Nowadays, football ‘fans’ can hurl abuse at players behind the safety of a computer screen. In 1995, Crystal Palace supporter Matthew Simmons felt the full force of Eric Cantona’s boot to his chest after allegedly shouting “F*** off back to France, you French b******” to the red-carded Manchester United man.
Naturally, there were serious repercussions; Cantona admitted assault but was spared jail – being handed community service instead – as well as being banned from football for eight months and fined a total of £30,000.
What happened to Simmons, you might ask? Unlike Cantona, he was sent to prison for a week – he assaulted a prosecutor after being found guilty of abusive behaviour towards Cantona – and then attacked his son’s football coach in 2011, which led to a suspended six-month jail sentence.
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In strikingly similar fashion to Mutu, Mark Bosnich had also been at Chelsea for a little over a year before he tested positive for cocaine in September 2002, which carried a nine-month ban and also saw the Blues give him the boot.
The former Manchester United goalkeeper spiralled after leaving Stamford Bridge, developing a devastating cocaine addiction until managing to quit the drug – with his father’s help – and eventually returning to playing after five years.
Bosnich unsurprisingly failed to regain his Premier League stars, but he briefly dabbled in goalkeeping in his native Australia before hanging up his gloves for good in 2009.
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Both before and after his big-money move to Newcastle United from AC Milan in 2023, Italian midfielder Sandro Tonali was found to have committed illegal gambling offences and was suspended for 10 months by the Italian authorities.
Tonali was also given a two-month suspended sentence by the FA on top of the 10-month punishment, but he was cleared to return to action in late August 2024 and will not serve the second ban if he does not breach betting rules again during the 2024-25 season.
While Tonali’s first season at St James’ Park was in tatters after his initial punishment, the lynchpin has become an integral player for Eddie Howe and his national team since being re-integrated into the game.
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Had Abel Xavier’s original 18-month ban for failing a drugs test in 2005 been upheld, the former Middlesbrough and Liverpool right-back would hold the unwanted honour of having the longest suspension in Premier League history.
The former Portugal international was found to have taken an anabolic steroid, making him the first Premier League player to be found guilty of using performance-enhancing drugs, but he managed to get his suspension reduced to 12 months upon an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Xavier remained with Middlesbrough throughout the entire length of his ban, before seeing out his playing days alongside David Beckham at the Los Angeles Galaxy.
1. Joey Barton – 13 months
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Starting and ending our list of the longest Premier League bans, Joey Barton returned to top-flight football with Burnley in early 2017, but the midfielder was sanctioned for a multitude of betting offences just a few months later.
While Toney’s 232 breaches may seem astronomical, Barton admitted placing no fewer than 1,260 bets on matches over a 10-year period from 2006 to 2016 and was suspended for 18 months, currently the longest ban ever handed down to a Premier League player.
Burnley knew that Barton had been charged but went on to re-sign him anyway, which proved to be an ill-judged decision by the Clarets; they released him at the end of that season before he called time on his controversial playing career.