Nick Bunyard: Banned non-league manager 'bet £2,200 on his side to lose one match'

A non-league manager banned for betting staked more than £2,200 on his team to lose a specific game, the Football Association has revealed.

Nick Bunyard was given a three-year ban and fined £3,000 on 9 November, after placing 45 bets against his own teams.

In releasing their written reasons for the ban, the FA said that Bunyard made a £1,436 profit when his Frome Town side lost at Weymouth on 2 April 2016.

The FA commission accepted Bunyard was not involved in match-fixing.

In total, Bunyard breached regulations with 97 bets, staking a total of £6,888.24 at an average of £71 per bet, producing a net profit of £2,612.74.

Of the 73 bets he placed on matches involving either Frome Town or former club Paulton Rovers, he made a net profit of £1,924.29.

Relating to the 2-0 loss to Weymouth, Bunyard placed 19 bets on the match, using four different markets, with four different betting operators.

The bets he placed on Frome to lose - totalling £2,201 - included a specific market that they would do so by more than 1.5 goals - and Weymouth's second goal was scored in the 89th minute.

However, the FA stressed that is was "not their case that Bunyard was involved in 'fixing' or influencing the outcome of any of the matches in which he placed bets on his own team to lose [or to win]".

An outfield player played in goal for Frome in the match at Weymouth because they had four registered goalkeepers unavailable, the FA statement revealed.

Frome, who play in England's seventh tier, have said that Bunyard's three-year ban was "excessive" in comparison to more high-profile cases.

FA rules prohibit "all those involved in the game" from betting on football "that takes place anywhere in the world".

The defence Bunyard put to the commission stated that the bets against his teams had "not been done as a calculated way to profit, but were based on unavoidable facts about injured, suspended or unavailable players" and were attempts to "soften the blow" if they lost.

He told BBC Somerset that betting "is part of the culture of football," and, since the ban, he has announced his retirement from the game.