West Ham sponsor: Bookmakers won’t desert football over Premier League ban
West Ham’s front-of-shirt sponsor has reassured the Premier League that the gambling industry won’t run away from football after a ban on betting partners takes effect next year.
England’s leading clubs voted to voluntarily ban gambling sponsors as front-of-shirt partners in a move due to come into force at the start of next season.
Over half of the 20 team in the top division have their main sponsorship deals with betting firms and will be forced to swap those out for alternatives.
But Vlad Kaltenieks, chief executive of BoyleSports, told CityAM that the ban would not drive bookmakers away from football.
He said: “We really like being part of the ecosystem. We’re all in terms of being able to do that in a responsible way, and we welcome what the Premier League is doing in that sense, I think they have their reasons to impose the ban on that.”
Kaltenieks says he is talking to West Ham about what the future of their partnership looks like, but says the ban “leaves us in the position where we really need to creatively think in terms of what’s next because the opportunities are limited”.
“There’s really not so much prime estate that we can utilise in order to be able to showcase who we are,” he added. “The West Ham partnership is one of the opportunities that we had to really shout loudly before the ban comes in.”
Gambling firms could still take sleeve spots
The voluntary ban does not stop betting and gambling firms from taking secondary shirt positions such as the sleeve – nor does it ban clubs from agreeing stadium naming rights deals with those firms.
Kaltenieks believes that tech companies are the most likely to replace bookmakers as shirt sponsors, adding that Spotify’s deal with Barcelona – where album covers and symbols appear in place of the streaming platform’s logo – is a great example of forward thinking business. He makes the case, too, for the luxury market.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s Budget on Wednesday is set to see changes to taxation on gambling firms, with hikes set to earn the Treasury millions.
And Kaltenieks urges caution from the government, insisting what has been a “solid and stable” regulated space could change enough that jobs are sent offshore.
He is calling for the maintenance of a “competitive but also well regulated environment, so that companies like ours can continue to invest”.