Some people can’t escape the headlines. This Wednesday, highly controversial Burnley midfielder Joey Barton was handed a likely career-ending 18-month football ban, after breaching FA betting regulations during a decade-long period.

The notorious 34-year-old, no stranger to the authorities in his long but fragmented playing career, has also received a £30,000 fine and a formal warning for good measure. The charges and punishment relate to incidents from 2006 to 2016, during which Barton admitted to placing over 1,000 bets relating to football, some of which were placed on himself, or on his own team at the time.

The FA, since August 2014, prohibits anyone ‘involved’ in England’s top eight tiers of football from betting on any worldwide football related matter.

As renowned sportsmen and women go, it could be said that Joey Barton does not have a particularly good rep. Comprehensive lists of every recorded incident or misdemeanour do exist online, and certainly make for concerningly long reading, but a Barton ‘best-of’ album would sound something like the following.

From 2004 to 2017, he: stubbed a cigar out in the eye of a teammate, mooned the entire Everton home fans at Goodison, was jailed for six months for common assault, punched, elbowed, kneed and (twice) kicked opposition players while on the pitch, was himself punched on the pitch, was arrested in Liverpool city centre, ignited a 10-man brawl against Doncaster and recently had his Rangers contact terminated after the latest training ground bust-up. And all that with a healthy smattering of club suspensions and vicious online Twitter rows.

So, with this hard act to follow, how does this most recent episode stack up?

“Barton won’t be alone in his betting activities: as it stands 53 other footballers are currently being investigated”

Average Joe will, inevitably, scan the headline, spot the culprit by the name of J. Barton, and roll their eyes at yet another piece to add to the growing jigsaw puzzle that is Barton’s mind. Of course, in an ideal world this would not be so – everyone would be able to consider this incident in isolation, and with the evidence in front of them, come up with a reasoned judgement as to the fairness of the penalty and severity of offence. But, alas, even in the most mundane of cases, this is rarely the case.

Barton has had too much history, hurt too many people, made too many bad decisions and written too many apologies for the public to sympathise with anymore. If it weren’t the case already, this latest hammer-blow sets in stone his reputation as a tyrannical hooligan, whose endless rushes of blood to the head and law-breaking endeavours cement his place in history as one of the most controversial characters the sport has ever seen. His fate is sealed, any hope of reinvigorating his image long gone, and his playing career done and dusted.

And that is where most, I should imagine, will let it lie. But those of us willing to read into this matter a little more will quickly realise that, as the severity of punishment suggests, this incident is a little different.

For a start, it relates to a series of gambling events over a much longer time frame, as opposed to the odd crazy moment here or there. Barton has since released a statement on his website detailing his response to the ban, and it raises some key issues relating to the state of gambling in football. He states: “If the FA is truly serious about tackling the culture of gambling in football, it needs to look at its own dependence on the gambling companies, their role in football and in sports broadcasting, rather than just blaming the players who place a bet.”

Those of us who, as fans, have ever been involved to any degree in football won’t have had to look hard to see how widespread gambling is in the sport. Most ad breaks will flash up the latest ‘live odds’ for anyone to easily, in a few taps of the smartphone, place a few pounds (or more) or just about anything they want. For many a trip to the bookies (some of which can be found directly inside stadia) adds an extra dimension to the sport and gets their heart pumping that bit more.

What is perhaps less obvious, but eminently more important, is the degree to which gambling takes place among the players. The Professional Players Federation this year conducted a survey which concluded that a significant number of Premier League players ‘under-perform’ due to stresses about potentially dealing with big financial losses. Many high-profile players have since come out to describe the manner in which the ‘Premier League lifestyle’ lends itself so easily to betting problems, and how more needs to be done to tackle the issue.

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Indeed, it is representative of the FA’s crackdown on match fixing and their goal to ‘keep the game special’. What with the fiasco surrounding the international body over the last few years, it is all too right that the FA places every ounce of effort into preserving the apparent clarity and honesty that permeates the national sport. Indeed, Barton won’t be alone in his betting activities: as it stands 53 other footballers are currently being investigated. Whether they receive a sanction as equal to Barton’s I very much doubt (his history won’t have helped him on that front), but it is looking very likely that we will see more of these charges being made in the coming months and years.

Barton’s conviction will, if it does nothing else, raise the right sort of questions for the governing body and among the public. Is football’s relationship with the gambling industry healthy? Can they live together honestly and harmoniously? Are players given the right sort of advice? And, most importantly for the avid supporter – can I trust what I see on the pitch?