7 ex-EFL Championship players who were banned from football after shock Ramadan Sobhi revelation | OneFootball

With former Stoke City winger Ramadan Sobhi facing a four-year football ban, FLW looks at 7 ex-Championship players to have been banned from the sport

Former Stoke City and Huddersfield Town winger Ramadan Sobhi is facing a whopping four-year ban from football at the age of 28.

The wide-man, who graced the Premier League with Stoke and the Terriers but never actually played in English football's second-tier, has been plying his trade back in his native Egypt for Pyramids FC since October 2020.

Sobhi clocked up a combined 50 appearances throughout his two-and-a-half years in the top-flight at Stoke and Huddersfield, though the once-dubbed 'Egyptian Messi' has rediscovered his form with the one-time CAF Champions League winners.

However, the 28-year-old now finds himself facing a four-year ban from the sport following a doping violation. Sobhi initially failed a drugs test in March 2024, for which he received a provisional ban.

The winger's suspension was lifted by the Egyptian Anti-Doping Organisation last summer, although the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) appealed the decision with the intention of sanctioning a four-year ban and, as per reports by Yallakora, the Court of Arbitration for Sport has taken the side of WADA.

This will see Sobhi suspended from football for the next four years, albeit the ex-Stoke attacker can still appeal the decision in federal court.

Nonetheless, with Sobhi currently facing an extensive ban, Football League World has decided to take a look through years gone by at seven former Championship stars who also received bans from football.

Ivan Toney

One player to have been struck with a high-profile ban from football in recent years is ex-Brentford marksman Ivan Toney.

In May 2023, the seven-cap England international was suspended from all football-related activities for eight months after being charged with 262 breaches of Football Association (FA) betting rules, admitting to 232, between 2017 and 2021.

The FA had initially sought to impose a 15-month ban on Toney, which was reduced to 11 months following the striker's guilty plea to all charges before being shortened further to eight months in light of the diagnosis of a gambling addiction.

Toney, who is now one of the Saudi Pro League's most high-profile stars with Al Ahli, made his name in the lower leagues prior to establishing himself as a Premier League star and an England international at Brentford.

The one-time Newcastle United striker burst onto the scene in League One for Peterborough United before propelling Brentford to the Premier League with a remarkable haul of 33 goals and ten assists throughout the 2020/21 campaign as the Bees defeated Swansea City in that season's play-off final.

Kieran Trippier

Another England international to have previously been slapped with a ban from football owing to gambling charges, albeit on a considerably-less damaging suspension, is veteran defender Kieran Trippier.

Formerly of Burnley, the full-back completed a reported £25 million switch from Tottenham Hotspur to Spanish giants Atletico Madrid in the summer of 2019.

More than a year later, however, it emerged that Trippier had encouraged friends via WhatsApp to "lump on" his transfer to Diego Simeone's side by keeping them updated with developments surrounding the move. A number of bets were made, which would see Trippier slapped with a 10-week ban and a fine of £70,000.

He returned to action after serving the ban to help Atletico lift the LaLiga title, before coming back to the Premier League with Newcastle. Trippier, much like Toney, also went on to stardom at the highest level after impressing in the Championship, with his 12 assists proving pivotal in Burnley's promotion in the 2014/15 season following years of second-tier experience with the Clarets and Barnsley.

Pawel Cibicki

A much more severe punishment, however, was handed out to former Leeds United forward Pawel Cibikci, who served a four-year ban from football for match-fixing.

In September 2021, a year on from his Elland Road exit, Cibicki received a four-year ban from the Swedish FA, having been found guilty of match-fixing through being bribed into receiving a yellow card while turning out for Elfsborg.

Cibicki would return to football with IFV Varnamo earlier this year. However, in October, the Swedish top-flight outfit announced that Cibicki had requested the cancellation of his contract after it had emerged that an elderly couple had lost 900,000 kronor (£71,700) to scammers, with 175,000 kronor (£13,900) going to two bank accounts belonging to the 31-year-old.

Cibicki moved to Elland Road for £1.5 million from Malmo in 2017, which fuelled his gambling problems. The former Sweden youth international, who only ever made 10 goalless appearances for the Whites, later admitted: "I was getting a little over 200,000 kronor (£14,500) a month from Leeds – that could be gone in an hour. There was no limit."

Nathaniel Mendez-Laing

In contrast to the aforementioned players, Nathaniel Mendez-Laing's ban from football was not related to gambling.

In September 2020, Cardiff City supporters were left stunned when the club announced that Mendez-Laing had been sacked for "an alleged breach of contract". It later transpired that the popular winger had served a three-month ban following a positive drugs test for cocaine on 4 July 2020, having taken the drug the evening before the Bluebirds' 1-0 Severnside Derby victory at rivals Bristol City.

Mendez-Laing, however, had already served one ban for taking cocaine in 2019. He was suspended in February 2020, and returned to action in May when league football restarted amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Vastly experienced at Championship level, the winger chalked up just shy of 100 appearances in South Wales and starred as Cardiff gained promotion to the Premier League under Neil Warnock in 2018. Warnock handed Mendez-Laing a lifeline by bringing him to Middlesbrough in 2021, but his tenure on Teesside was brief and he also endured a short stay at Sheffield Wednesday before resurrecting his career with Derby County.

Mendez-Laing, now aged 33 and with ex-Rams manager Paul Warne at MK Dons of League Two, spent three years in Derbyshire and was a vital force behind the side's return to the Championship in the 2023/24 season.

Joey Barton

Joey Barton is no stranger to finding himself on the wrong side of the law, and his successful playing career was littered with a range of high-profile incidents.

In April 2017, having only recently returned to Burnley following a short spell at Rangers, the FA punished Barton with an 18-month ban after the one-cap former England international was found guilty of placing more than 1,000 bets on football matches, some of which he had played in, between 2006 and 2016.

A couple of months later, Barton was released by the Clarets and that ban was reduced by five months on appeal, although it still effectively spelled the end of his career as he decided to hang up his boots in 2017.

Back in 2007, Barton was charged with violent conduct by the FA and received a six-match ban with a further six-match ban suspended for two years after a training ground incident with then-Manchester City teammate Ousmane Dabo, which resulted in the Frenchman being knocked unconscious and taken to hospital with a number of injuries.

On the final game of the 2011/12 season, meanwhile, Barton was famously sent off during Manchester City's iconic 3-2 victory over QPR. Then at QPR, Barton elbowed Carlos Tevez in the face, proceeded to kick eventual matchwinner Sergio Aguero in the back and then attempted to headbutt Vincent Kompany, promptly receiving a 12-game ban by the FA for three counts of violent conduct.

Jordan Stevens

Another former Leeds player to be banned from football owing to gambling charges — though not as severe as the aforementioned Cbicki and not related to match-fixing — was Jordan Stevens, whose suspension came at a youthful point for the midfielder.

Early on into the 2019/20 campaign, which Leeds would ultimately conclude with promotion to the Premier League under Marcelo Bielsa, Stevens admitted a charge of placing 59 bets throughout the previous term. Five of those bets were on fixtures involving Leeds, including two that had both teams to score, though Stevens featured in none of the matches he bet on, with the-then 19-year-old staking a total of £510.12.

Nonetheless, Stevens was sanctioned a six-week ban from all football-related activity, in a punishment which Leeds slammed as "disproportionate."

Signed from Forest Green Rovers in 2018, Stevens made just six appearances for Leeds and spent time on loan with Swindon Town and Bradford City before leaving permanently to join Barrow. Now aged 25, the midfielder is currently plying his trade for non-league side Ilkeston Town.

Andros Townsend

It can be easy to forget that Andros Towsend has featured in the Championship, and it could similarly slip the mind that the ex-England winger once received a ban of his own for betting-related offences.

In June 2013, Townsend was suspended for four months backdated to 23 May, with three of those months being suspended until July 2016, while he also received an £18,000 fine by the FA for breaching betting regulations.

Townsend was not betting on games he was involved in, and the length of the ban alongside his withdrawal from the England under-21 squad at the time meant that, in contrast to the others on this list, he did not actually miss a game of football.

The wide-man took in loan stints throughout the Championship in his formative years with the likes of Ipswich Town, Watford, Millwall, Leeds and Birmingham City before establishing himself at Tottenham.