Football Gambling Shirt Sponsor Ban Immanent Government White Paper Suggests
The relationship between football and gambling is a complicated one. As less savoury things such as cigarettes and alcohol got banned from advertising on the front of football shirts, gambling stepped into the breach and ploughed money into clubs as well as the leagues to ensure that the sport was able to continue to grow. Just as with smoking and drinking, however, it soon became noted that gambling isn’t a particularly good thing and that football had something of a moral responsibility to stop people from being involved in something that might cause them damage.
By that time, of course, the likes of Sky Bet was busy sponsoring the Championship, League One and League Two, whilst more than half of all Premier League teams had a betting company on the front of their shirts. It was clear that football as a sport would not do what was necessary to curb the influence of gambling, so many felt as though the decision should be taken out of the hands of the sport’s governing bodies. Now it appears as though that is precisely what is going to happen, with a government white paper suggesting Premier League clubs be banned from having gambling sponsors on shirts.
It Is A Long-Running Topic
As long ago as March 2018, this site published a piece about the Football Association’s decision to stop sponsorship deals with betting companies. With betting on football being worth more than £1.5 billion in 2017, it was clear to anyone that wished to consider the matter that the relationship between football and gambling was not a healthy one. Just over a year later and we ran another piece, this time exploring the fact that 50% of clubs in the English top-flight would boast a gambling company as their main sponsor for the 2019-2020 campaign.
As for the topic of gambling companies sponsoring football shirts, that was brought up in the House of Lords in 2020, with a ban on the matter being suggested. In spite of the publication of a 192-page report into the topic, nothing was actually done about it. Though sponsors tried to get ahead of the issue by introducing a self-imposed ban on advertising during the 90 minutes of football matches, it was pointed out that this was little more than lip service when you consider the fact that most clubs have some form of betting branding on shirts or on advertising hoardings throughout games.
The first bit of positive news that we were able to publish on the topic on this site came about in July of 2021, when it emerged that there was going to be a reduction in betting sponsors in the Premier League for the 2021-2022 campaign. Even so, the reduction was minor at best, so the campaign from anti-gambling groups continued to rage on. It is with that in mind that the government carried on looking into the matter, with sources at the BBC being informed that a forthcoming white paper will suggest a ban for Premier League clubs.
What Is Being Suggested
As part of the government’s long-overdue gambling reform, a suggestion is likely to be made that Premier League clubs be banned from having gambling companies as their main sponsors. This suggestion is almost certainly going to be made as part of a white paper, which should be published next month. It is part of what the Department for Digital, Culture, media and Sport is calling the ‘most comprehensive review of gambling laws in 15 years’, which is aimed at making sure that the rules become fit for the digital age.
When the House of Lords Select Committee made the suggestion that this should happen back in 2020, the idea was put forward that Premier League clubs should face a ban as soon as possible, whilst lower league clubs should be given a grace period to phase it out. This is because gambling and the English Football League are intertwined with each other, to the extent that the EFL feels as though a ban on gambling companies would cost clubs about £40 million per year. Little surprise when you consider that the EFL itself is sponsored by Sky Bet.
Is It ‘Incoherent’?
Critics of the proposals feel as though they are ‘incoherent’, with James Grimes from the campaign group The Big Step saying the following on the matter:
“This is welcome, but to remove gambling from shirts while allowing pitch-side advertising, league sponsorship and club partnerships to continue would be massively incoherent. Every young fan should be able to watch their club – in the ground and on TV – without being bombarded by ads for gambling, which we know harms millions, and takes hundreds of lives every year.”
Grimes’ point is that the government appears to recognise that gambling can be harmful by suggesting taking the step in the first place, but then doesn’t seem to want to ban the likes of gambling adverts on hoardings or even ban gambling sponsors at lower levels of the game. It is a bit of a halfway house of an approach, which suggests that it is being done to appease campaigners rather than to actually look to help society’s most vulnerable. Indeed, the Premier League and EFL have suggested that a ban on shirt sponsorship from gambling companies won’t make much of a difference.
Though there are 1.4 million people in Britain that are being harmed by gambling, according to a YouGov survey, and a further 1.5 million people at risk of gambling related harm, the suggestion from the powers that be in the English top-flight and the Football League is that there is ‘no evidence to show a causal link between gambling sponsorship and problem gambling’. The Betting and Gaming Council, meanwhile, professed that it ‘strongly supports the gambling review as a further opportunity to raise standards’. It also made the point that gambling sponsors ‘must comply with strict guidelines and safer gambling messaging’.
