Eleven Premier League clubs will have to find new principal sponsors next season when the ban on front-of-shirt advertising for betting companies takes effect. This will represent a financial blow for the clubs concerned: gambling operators are known to pay a substantial premium on standard industry rates. As Karren Brady told the House of Lords in a debate on the football governance bill last November, “the typical difference between gambling and non-gambling shirt sponsorships is around 40%”. The vice-chair of West Ham warned: “For some Premier League clubs, this decision [to ban front-of-shirt gambling advertising] will mean a reduction of around 20% of their total commercial revenues.”
So how to make for the shortfall? Some clubs seem to have opted for the simplest of solutions: to carry on as before, by adapting the nature of their offer to gambling partners accordingly, which includes hidden partnership deals with Asian-facing operators that are unlicensed in the UK and target illegal markets in China, and south and east Asia. The clubs concerned are Sunderland, Aston Villa, Leeds, Nottingham Forest and Chelsea.
There will still be advertising space to be sold at a premium as the ban in question will be limited to the fronts of shirts. It will remain possible, for instance, to display the names of gambling brands on shirt sleeves and on the LED perimeter boards which surround the stadiums.
Until recently, deals with Asian-facing operators were off the table if they had no regulatory status in the UK. Consequently, those bookmakers used so-called white label companies, such as the Isle of Man-based TGP Europe, to register UK domain names with the Great Britain Gambling Commission (GBGC). But TGP Europe exited the British market after the GBGC hit them last May with a £3.3m fine for multiple breaches of anti-money laundering regulations. Other white label agents followed suit. This would normally have meant that any form of advertisement for these operators would no longer be allowed in Britain. Yet those operators are still part of the Premier League’s ecosystem.
Clubs were prompt in seizing on an opening which was given to them by the GBGC, which appears to have changed its stance on the conditions that must be met by clubs to enter into commercial relationships with unlicensed operators. This was made clear in a letter sent in May by the GBGC to four Premier League clubs – Bournemouth, Fulham, Wolves and Newcastle – plus Burnley, then in the Championship, who had been partners of TGP Europe-registered operators. Clubs are now required only to satisfy themselves that their partners are not accepting bets in sterling or from UK customers, and that their websites are geo-blocked in Britain.
There is, however, a sting in the tail. “We would advise that any organisation engaging in sponsorship from brands that do not hold a commission licence manage their exposure to risk,” the GBGC said. “This includes satisfying themselves as to the source of the funds for the arrangement.” And that is – or should be – problematic, as the identity of the ultimate beneficial owners of Asian-facing betting companies is a mystery which has eluded clubs, law enforcement agencies and regulators ever since those multiple brands emerged in the 2000s and 2010s.
Yet this has not prevented clubs such as Burnley (96.com), Sunderland (W88), Wolves (DeBet), Fulham (SBOTOP) and Crystal Palace (Net88) from acquiring or retaining Asian-facing, UK-unlicensed operators as their main sponsors for one last season before the ban; but these partnerships are at least acknowledged and visible, and have only nine months to go at the most. This is not the case for another, new type of partnership that has taken root and that gives a taste of things to come in the post-ban Premier League.
Sunderland, again, Leeds, Nottingham Forest and Chelsea have been promoting the Asian-facing 8Xbet (a former partner of Manchester City among others) on the perimeter boards of their stadiums at every home game since the start of the season, with Chelsea being the only of the four to acknowledge their relationship with the bookmaker on their website. Villa’s hidden partner is Nova88, “the best online casino in Malaysia”, which claims to be licensed in Tobique, a Canadian First Nation reservation (sports betting is illegal in Malaysia). The partnership was announced in a pre-season statement by the club, but the name of the “Official Asian Betting Partner” of Villa does not appear in their website’s list of partners. Similarly, while Chelsea do not hide their relationship with 8Xbet, their partnership with another Asian-facing bookmaker, Kaiyun, is only visible when accessing the club’s website from some Asian jurisdictions.
The clubs’ reluctance to acknowledge publicly commercial relationships with Asian-facing operators is understandable. There is a reputational risk involved. Though none of the companies partnering with Premier League clubs have been named directly, multiple recent reports, by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the Asian Racing Federation in particular, have highlighted the links between illegal Asian-facing online sports betting platforms, scamming, human trafficking and cyber slavery in the region. The operators themselves do not care if the British public is unaware of their relationship with English clubs, as what matters to them is how their Asian customer base is exposed to their brands when watching Premier League games.
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Spain is showing the way to England in this respect. All sports betting advertising has been banned in La Liga since the end of the 2020-21 season, yet almost all of its clubs, including Real Madrid (Kaiyun) and Atlético Madrid (Leyu and K8), have turned to hidden partnerships and signed deals with Asian-facing betting operators since then. Spanish fans will not be aware of this; no more than English fans of Sunderland or Forest are aware of their club’s links to 8Xbet.
A detailed list of questions was sent to Sunderland, Aston Villa, Leeds, Nottingham Forest and Chelsea. Sunderland were the only ones to respond. A spokesperson for the club said: “On this occasion the Club politely declines to comment in response to the questions listed below.”
