Atletico Madrid and England defender Kieran Trippier has been suspended for 10 weeks and fined £70,000 following a breach of betting rules, the English Football Association (FA) said on Wednesday.
Trippier, 30, denied seven alleged breaches of FA Rule E8, which were said to occur in July 2019, and requested a personal hearing.
An FA statement read: “An independent regulatory commission was appointed to hear the case, with four of the alleged breaches found proven and three dismissed during a subsequent personal hearing.
“The independent regulatory commission’s written reasons for its decisions and the associated sanction will be published in due course.”
The FA did not clarify what the breach entailed but said it had occurred in July 2019, around the time Trippier joined Atletico from Tottenham.
The ban means that Trippier will miss Atletico’s Champions League round of 16 first-leg tie against Chelsea in Madrid on Feb. 23.
The defender will now miss at least 13 games in all competitions but is set to return in time for the city derby against Real Madrid in March.
Diego Simeone’s side sit three points clear at the top of La Liga with a game in hand on Real who are second.
Trippier has been one of the standout performers for Atletico, playing every minute of their La Liga and Champions League games this season.
Trippier’s ban comes around nine months after former England striker Daniel Sturridge was punished for a breach of the FA’s gambling rules.
Sturridge was initially handed a six-week ban, four of them suspended, and fined £75,000 after being found guilty of providing his brother with information on a potential move from Liverpool to Sevilla in 2018.
After the FA appealed against the decision on the grounds that it was too lenient, an independent appeal board increased the ban to four months and doubled the fine.