Former Major League Soccer players Yaw Yeboah and Derrick Jones have been given lifetime bans for betting on MLS games, including matches they played in, the league announced on Monday.
Yeboah, 28, last played for LAFC in 2025 and was previously teammates with Jones at the Columbus Crew. Both players were put on administrative leave last October while the league looked into potential rule violations.
MLS hired the law firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP to conduct an investigation after receiving suspicious betting alerts. The investigation revealed that Jones and Yeboah were involved in significant gambling on soccer, including bets on their own teams, during the 2024 and 2025 seasons.
In a match on October 19, 2024, between the Crew and the New York Red Bulls, both players placed bets on Jones receiving a yellow card. This happened in the 35th minute after a foul. The league stated that it “determined that the players likely shared confidential information with other bettors about their intent to draw yellow cards.”
However, MLS added that there was “no evidence that suggested any of these betting activities affected the outcome of a match.”
The league has successfully worked to remove yellow and red cards from betting options in areas where betting is allowed. Of the 52 jurisdictions in the U.S., 41 permit betting. Among those, 33 do not allow betting on cards, including 15 that changed their rules after discussions with MLS, according to a league spokesperson.
Additionally, MLS mandates that players complete training on its gambling policy and sign an agreement confirming their completion of that training.
“Major League Soccer is committed to maintaining match integrity,” MLS commissioner Don Garber said in a statement. “The league will continue to enforce its policies, enhance educational efforts, and advocate for banning yellow card betting in all states to protect the integrity of our competition.”
Currently, Yeboah is playing for Qingdao Hainiu in China and scored a goal in his debut this past weekend. He won an MLS Cup and Leagues Cup while with the Crew. Between 2022 and 2025, he appeared in 91 MLS matches (46 starts), scoring five goals and providing nine assists.
Jones, also a midfielder, played for Philadelphia, Nashville, Houston, Charlotte, and Columbus from 2017 to 2025, netting one goal and five assists in 131 games (67 starts).
Yeboah and Jones are not the first MLS players to face lifetime bans. In 2021, Felipe Hernandez from Sporting Kansas City was suspended and had his contract terminated three years later for betting on league matches.