Football Teams Risk Losing Sponsorship of Betting Companies with New Ban

As the United Kingdom looks to overhaul its Gambling Act 2005 to fit in with a more modern approach, football teams risk losing out on their sponsorship deals. The widespread review of the gambling industry is targeting various areas, with the ban on such sponsorship deals in the football world being one of them.

UK wants to overhaul its Gambling Act 2005

The Gambling Act 2005 has received quite the blame for the growing numbers of gambling addiction throughout the UK as of late. Therefore, calls have been brought forward to go through a complete change around, so as to cope with today’s more modern age of gambling. Of course, a balance needs to be generated between protecting people and retaining an entertaining gambling sector within the country.

However, even though there is a seriousness behind the gambling problems that the UK is experiencing, the English Football League (EFL) has asked the government to rethink any sort of potential ban on the sponsorship deals with betting brands. Of course, the worldwide pandemic has meant that the league has lost a huge part of its income stream. Therefore, it remains quite heavily dependent on other sources of revenue, such as those sponsorship deals.

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At the moment, around 10 teams within the EFL have gambling sponsorship, so removing these would likely result in a financial crisis for them. Even more so, beginning the 2020-21 season, only three clubs in the Premier League did not have some sort of association with the betting industry in one way or another. Companies like Bet365, Betway and Sportsbet have quite a high visibility within the sports sector. West Ham has a huge £20 million deal with the Betway brand, for example.

Because betting companies are so highly seen on football team shirts, people have suggested that this is something that tempts others to sign up and start gambling. While nothing has been confirmed as to the status of banning gambling sponsorship in the EFL, there is a strong likelihood that Boris Johnson’s government will support such a move.

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