The Premier League asks clubs to voluntarily ban gambling and betting companies’ sponsorships
Football clubs are making millions of money from betting companies’ sponsorships, but they are asked to gradually remove bookies’ and gambling companies’ logos from their uniforms as there is stronger and stronger pressure for making a clear distinction between sports betting and the sport itself. All sportsbooks, including the best online bookmakers in the UK, are extremely interested in promoting their brand through the live action of football, making their way directly to the intense feelings, positive emotions and excitement of both clubs’ fans and sports’ spectators. But it is questionable whether they will be able to continue to do so, with all the opposition and the shift of stakeholders’ interest to eliminate the notion that football is dependent on betting.
Spain, as well as other great football countries, has put restrictive measures on betting companies’ sponsorships of clubs. There have been clear attempts to distinguish sports from gambling and limit any potential effects of gambling advertising on the football fans. All the while, in many other countries one can still see the bookies’ logos appearing on the chest of the football players. In the UK there are ongoing deliberations on banning sponsorships by gambling brands.
Clubs’ responses
At the moment almost half of the Premier League’s clubs are sponsored by a bookmaker brand. In fact 9 out of the 20 clubs carry a gambling and betting logo on their official uniform - a rather strong penetration, since we are talking about nearly 50% of the world’s most popular football competition. In response to that, nearly twenty football clubs from all English leagues as well as clubs from non-leagues have signed their support for banning shirt sponsorship from gambling companies and have asked the regulatory body to make subsequent decisions that will constitute such sponsorship illegal and as such ban logos appearing on shirts of players. A letter sent to the UK government read “As owners, directors, and executives responsible for our clubs, we have witnessed the harmful growth of gambling sponsorship and advertising in football, including the negative impact on our fans”. Further, they urged the government to take decisive steps towards banning the logo of gambling and betting companies in front of the football players’ uniform, so as to minimize the negative impact and restore the critical positive perceptions of fans regarding their favorite football teams.
The role of the government
And while in December 2020, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) launched a review of the Gambling Act, which would provision for ramifications of sponsorship agreements including those made between gambling companies and football teams, the UK government dropped its procedures for banning the betting companies’ sponsorships on football club shirts and turned its attention at finding a more ‘low profile’ solution. The idea was to resolve the matter jointly with the clubs themselves.
The government asked football clubs to voluntarily ban gambling companies’ sponsorships in an attempt to avoid imposing regulatory acts. On their part, the leagues have turned to the clubs themselves. The Premier League has called top football clubs to remove gambling sponsors’ logos appearing on their uniform, so as to avoid receiving fines and also avoid formal, government-led banning of sponsorship that would have further implications and ramifications.
What happens to sponsorships still in effect?
The Premier League’s request from its top clubs however can cost millions and millions, especially for sponsorship agreements that continue to run their course or for those which will be in effect for the next periods and which involve huge amounts of money exchanged for a logo appearing on the front of the shirt of footballers. In that respect, the Premier League acknowledges and recognizes the lawful rights of gambling and betting companies that have entered into sponsorship agreements with the football clubs. On the basis of these, the Premier League proposed to allow the existing sponsorship deals that are running up to the 2024-25 period and as such end with the logos on players’ front shirts by that year.
Clearly the Premier League’s proposal to the clubs is illustrative of its efforts to deal with an issue that has triggered the attention of the public and that has been an ongoing debate when it comes to betting and gambling advertising and promotion.
