Major League Soccer announced on Monday that it has given Derrick Jones and Yaw Yeboah lifetime bans for “extensive” gambling, including on games involving their own teams. In one instance, the pair won a bet that Jones would receive a yellow card.
MLS said it had received “suspicious betting alerts” and retained a law firm to investigate. The players were placed on administrative leave in late October 2025 as the review ran its course. Eventually, the investigation found that both players betted on soccer extensively throughout the 2024 and 2025 seasons, including on their own teams. “In one instance,” the league said, “both players bet on Jones to draw a yellow card during an 19 October, 2024 match, which he received.”
Yeboah and Jones overlapped for one season with the Columbus Crew in 2024. Jones stayed with the Crew for the 2025 season, while Yeboah signed with Los Angeles FC, with whom he made 17 appearances in 2025. He mutually agreed to cancel his contract with LAFC in January and now plays in China.
Jones, 28, was born in Ghana but emigrated to the United States as a teenager. He rose through the youth ranks at the Philadelphia Union and later played for Nashville SC, Houston Dynamo, Charlotte FC and most recently with Columbus. Jones has made 131 league appearances in his career.
Yeboah, also 28, is a graduate of the Right to Dream academy and originally hails from Accra, Ghana. He joined Manchester City in 2014 and went on loan to a number of sides, eventually landing at Wisła Kraków before being transferred to the Crew before the 2022 season. With the Crew, Yeboah matured into one of the best left wing-backs in the league, winning MLS Cup with Columbus in 2023.
In 2021, MLS suspended Sporting Kansas City midfielder Felipe Hernàndez for betting on games. It terminated his contract in 2024 after he violated league gambling policies a second time.
