FOOTBALL: All professional players in English football will be banned from betting on any matches anywhere in the world from next season.

The ruling was ratified at the Football Association’s annual general meeting yesterday and will apply to any player in the top eight tiers of the English league system.

It replaces the current rules which only ban players from betting on competitions in which their club was involved.

CRICKET: Toby Roland-Jones finished with a match haul of 12 wickets as Middlesex blew away Northamptonshire by an innings and 84 runs to go top of the County Championship Division One.

Career-best match figures of 12 for 105, six in each innings, helped bowl the hosts out for 176 in 87.5 overs at Wantage Road.

Middlesex’s fourth win from their six matches so far takes them 19 points clear of Yorkshire, who have a game in hand.

ATHLETICS: Olympic high jump bronze medallist Robbie Grabarz will miss the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in July after being ruled out of the outdoor season by knee surgery.

Grabarz, who will also be unable to defend his European crown this summer, will have an operation next week to fix a long-standing problem.

The 26-year-old said the injury to a tendon in his left knee “had been a problem for about a year.”

HORSERACING: Tim Jarvis, son of Alan Jarvis, has had his application for a training licence turned down by the British Horseracing Authority.

Jarvis senior lost his permission to train under the BHA’s “fit and proper person” rule relating to a debt owed to Doncaster Bloodstock Sales and is currently operating on a temporary licence.

Tim Jarvis has passed all the required modules but was still rejected. He has appealed against the decision.