Football clubs sent financial warning as Government plan sponsorship clamp down

Football has been warned it faces a “significant impact” with the Government ready to impose a major crackdown on betting sponsorship.

Ministers could impose a complete ban on shirt sponsorship with gambling firms as part of their review with teams from the top two divisions making around £110m-a-year from the tie-ups.

But there are growing concerns about addictions and football’s relationship with the multi-billion pound gambling industry in terms of advertising and commercial deals

Now one of the major firms, the Kindred Group – which oversees UNIBET and 32Red in the UK among nine brands – has taken the revolutionary step of opening up its books.

Neil Banbury, UK General Manager at Kindred Group, says their figures show and in-depth research show that “high risk” customers make up four per cent of their business and their target is to reach zero levels.

But Banbury did admit that the financial implications for football could be huge if the Government tries to pull the plug as 32Red sponsor Derby in the Championship.

While eight top-flight teams out of 20 – Burnley, Crystal Palace, Fulham, Leeds, Newcastle, Southampton, West Ham and Wolverhampton Wanderers – have their shirt sponsored by betting firms.

Banbury said: “Clearly it’s not a good time for football clubs with commercial income streams and the huge pressure, certainly outside the Premier League, partners and sponsors make up a significant part of football clubs’ income. It’s clearly not a good time from that perspective.

“To some extent we would welcome some intervention or some changing in the rules. There should be a much higher bar for being able to get involved in such a visible property within the UK.

“The vast majority of brands sponsoring the Premier League don’t have a UK business, have no interest in UK consumers.

“That has created the toxicity around the debate when actually what we should be talking about is a high bar to get involved and then let’s talk about the good work we can do together.

“Ultimately, if the buyers in that market get heavily restricted then the price will go down. So clubs will be facing reduced income streams at a time where they've got plenty of income stream challenges outside of the sponsorship world so there's potential for significant impact.”

But Kindred are stressing that by identifying the number of problem gamblers, they can flag up issues and take action. It comes at a time when ex-Crystal Palace and Tottenham defender Steven Caulker, a self confessed gambling addict, accused firms of being “ugly” and “preying on the weak.”

Banbury added: "Ultimately, we are talking percentages and statistics but it's people that are impacted when harm is caused and it's not just the gambler, it's their family and friends. We recognise there's a wider impact as well and we recognise why we get this right.

“Where we need to get to is a position is our ability to identify and the effectiveness of how we interact to a level where we can significantly reduce and ultimately our goal is zero percent.

“That's obviously a lofty target but that depends on the direction we take but we have to find a sensible balance in terms of regulations because tens of millions of people bet now and tens of millions of people will bet in the future and that's all happening within a licensed and taxed environment to make sure the protection levels are at the highest.”

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