Yaw Yeboah
Major League Soccer has handed lifetime bans to Ghanaian winger Yaw Yeboah and midfielder Derrick Jones after an investigation uncovered extensive gambling activity involving soccer matches, including games featuring their own teams.
The league announced on Monday that both players were found to have placed multiple bets during the 2024 and 2025 seasons.
The investigation was launched after MLS received suspicious betting alerts and subsequently hired an external law firm to review the matter.
According to the findings, the two players even wagered on disciplinary outcomes during a match. In one instance on October 19, 2024, both players bet that Jones would receive a yellow card in a game — a booking he eventually received.
MLS placed both players on administrative leave in October 2025 while the investigation was ongoing. The league later determined that their betting activities violated strict rules prohibiting players from gambling on soccer, especially matches involving their own teams.
Yeboah and Jones were teammates at Columbus Crew during the 2024 season. Jones remained with the club for the 2025 campaign, while Yeboah moved to Los Angeles FC, where he made 17 appearances before mutually terminating his contract in January. The Ghanaian winger now plays in China.
Jones, born in Ghana but raised in the United States, previously featured for clubs including Philadelphia Union, Nashville SC, Houston Dynamo and Charlotte FC, making 131 league appearances in his career.
Yeboah, a graduate of the Right to Dream Academy in Accra, once belonged to Manchester City before moving through several loan spells and later joining the Crew, where he helped the club win the 2023 MLS Cup.