Premier League Ban Betting Main Kit Sponsors From 2026
Update: The Premier League clubs have agreed to remove gambling sponsorship from the front of their matchday shirts, making them the first UK sports league to take such voluntary action. The transition away from shirt-front gambling sponsorship will begin at the end of the 2025-26 season to give clubs time to adjust.
Premier League Kits to Have No Betting Main Shirt Sponsors From 2026, Sleeve & Other Still Allowed
Meanwhile, the decision to remove gambling sponsorship from the front of their matchday shirts only applies to the front of the shirts, and not to other forms of advertising such as sleeves, backs of shirts, digital boards around the pitch, banners on the pitch next to the goals, half-time big screens, TV adverts, and broadcasters.
Update - July 2022: The Premier League have asked Premier League clubs to vote on phasing out gambling sponsors from appearing on shirts. With a potential government-imposed ban on betting logos looming, the Premier League would prefer to voluntarily make the decision, but they need the backing of 14 out of 20 Premier League clubs.
Premier League Clubs to Vote On Betting Sponsor Ban
The government's decision will come on the 21st of July, so the clubs will vote before that date so that the Premier League could pre-mpt any official ban. A winning "yes" vote would see new betting sponsorship deals outlawed from the start of the 22-23 season, but existing sponsorships would be allowed to stay in place until the end of the 24-25 season, which is the final cut-off point for their removal.
BBC news reports that a proposal to ban gambling sponsors from Premier League football shirts was included in a draft government white paper. The government are to update UK gambling laws next month, which could mean a change in the rules for kit sponsorship.
Betting Sponsor Ban Considered by UK Government
There has been talk since 2020 of the government stepping in to forbid betting company logos from appearing on football shirts and it seems to finally be happening, albeit in delayed fashion. The delay of the release of the white paper means that clubs have already started negotiations with new sponsors for next season without any knowledge of such a ban, so it would likely come into place from the 23-24 season at the earliest. James Grimes of the anti-gambling campaign group The Big Step said:
"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. If the government recognises gambling can be harmful, as this step suggests, then it must end all gambling advertising and sponsorship in football at all levels, not just on shirts."
Despite a recent survey by YouGov finding that almost 3 million young people in the UK are being harmed or at risk of being harmed by gambling, the government and the EFL maintain that there is no evidence of a causal link between gambling sponsorship and problem gambling.
Nine out of twenty Premier League clubs have a betting company as their main sponsor, so we would see a lot of changes to kits across the league should the ban eventually be approved, as was the case in Spain at the start of this season. Will we see an influx of new crypto sponsors in that case? Probably.
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