Post by ZACCHEUS JOLAYEMI (@zaccheus_jolayemi)
Let me help you put this in context.
In 2019, Italy banned nearly all gambling advertising in sport. It was not allowed at all - not on shirts, not on sleeves, not on hoardings, LED boards, stadium naming rights, or training kits. All of it.
Spain followed in 2021 and removed gambling sponsorship from football shirts completely, with restrictions across broadcast advertising during live matches. Those are bans. In my opinion, what the Premier League announced this week is not a ban.
From 22 August, no Premier League club can carry a betting brand on the front of a matchday shirt. That is the entire rule. Sleeves are still available. Training kits are untouched. Hoardings, LED boards, stadium partnerships, and official club sponsorships with gambling companies all continue exactly as before.
Understanding why the clubs did this makes the whole thing clearer.
In April 2023, the government was reviewing the Gambling Act and a mandatory, comprehensive ban was genuinely on the table. All twenty clubs came together and agreed to surrender one shirt position voluntarily, becoming the first top division in the UK to do so.
They had to move first and you choose the size of the concession or wait until the government chooses.
Before now, eight clubs had betting brands on their shirt fronts when the agreement was signed and that number grew to eleven during the three-year grace period they were given to wind down.
The clubs replacing those deals are reporting revenues of four to five million per year. Arsenal have Emirates. Manchester City have Etihad. Liverpool have Standard Chartered. Not one of the top clubs ever needed a betting sponsor and the ban costs them absolutely nothing.
As recently as April, nine clubs had no confirmed front-of-shirt deal for this coming season. Some may begin August with a blank chest.
A young fan watching this season will still see the same betting brands. On the sleeve, behind the goal, around the pitch, and on the training top their favourite player wears every day. That is what a voluntary ban buys you.
It protects the clubs that never needed protecting, squeezes the ones that did, and changes very little for the person it was supposedly written for.
CC: Ajoje, a FIFA Licensed Agent and International Sports Lawyer.
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