John Terry Substitution Time Bet Pays £3,500 but Raises Suspicions

• Odds on the precise substitution time were set at 100-1
• FA wants to ensure there was no match fixing involved
• Paddy Power says it made mistake by not “clocking sooner there’d be another cringe-worthy Chelsea sendoff for JT”

Irish bookmaker Paddy Power reports paying out £3,500 on a John Terry substitution between 6:00 and 26:59 in Sunday's Premier League clash with Sunderland with odds of 100-1.

Now the Football Association has stepped in to request information from Paddy Power over the customers who won this wager to ensure there was no type of match fixing involved.

The FA defines match fixing as “arranging in advance the result or conduct of a match or competition, or any event within a match or competition.”

The FA has now instigated a dialogue with betting companies to ascertain the precise chain of events on Sunday, according to the Guardian.

The governing body has requested any relevant information. There is no suggestion that the decision to substitute Terry was anything other than Chelsea’s attempt to give their captain a proper send-off as his 22-year spell at the club draws to a close, and no suspicious betting patterns have, as yet, been reported.

Paddy Power has released the following statement in response to the FA request:

“We replied to a novelty request for odds on John Terry’s substitution – one of hundreds on the Chelsea game – and fair play to the three punters who were on at odds of 100-1.  To be honest the only mistake here is we should have clocked sooner there’d be another cringe-worthy Chelsea sendoff for JT.”

- Alistair Prescott, Gambling911.com