Swansea City A.F.C. became the highest-profile professional football team that decided to drop a gambling operator as its shirt sponsor.
The football club, which occupied the sixth position in the Championship, revealed that it will replace the online betting company Yobet with Swansea University as its main shirt sponsor. The move comes after the club faced increased pressure from anti-gambling campaigners, who have been calling for stricter measures to prevent the increased presence of gambling companies as sponsors of professional football teams.
Swansea City football club has had gambling operators as shirt sponsors for the past four seasons. As Casino Guardian has previously revealed, half of the English Premier League (EPL) clubs and 17 of 24 clubs in the Championship had bookmakers as sponsors. The list of teams that had gambling companies as sponsors included clubs such as West Ham United and Newcastle United.
However, a recent report of a House of Lords Select Committee has read that EPL clubs should not be permitted to display the logos of betting firms on their shirts as the presence of gambling operators on the clubs’ kits could normalise the relationship between football and gambling.
Campaigners Have Insisted On Suspending Gambling Companies’ Football Sponsorship Deals
Anti-gambling campaigners have long challenged the presence of gambling companies as sponsors of professional clubs and athletes, especially when it comes to football. According to them, such sponsorship agreements normalise gambling in sport, which could be particularly dangerous when it comes to children, who could get hooked on gambling as young adults after getting the wrong impression from such practices.
The chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group that has been insisting for stricter regulation on sponsorship deals between football clubs and gambling companies, Carolyn Harris MP, commented that moving away from its sponsorship with the gambling firm was the right thing to do for Swansea City. According to Ms Harris, the decision was a really positive step that would benefit the football club’s fans, particularly children, in the longer term. She further said she hoped that other football clubs would follow suit and ditch bookmakers from sponsorship agreements.
Rebecca Edwards-Symmons, head of commercial of the Swans, said this would be the first year in four years in which the club would not feature a betting brand’s logo on its shirt. She further explained that the decision to change its shirt sponsor was an essential step for Swansea City.
One of the gambling charities that has been campaigning for stricter regulation of gambling operators to be implemented praised the football club for the decision to sign a kit sponsorship deal with the University even though a partnership with a gambling company would have been more beneficial. Campaigners have been trying to reduce the dependence of professional football clubs on gambling sponsors for years, so the recently-announced decision of Swansea City to replace Yobet with another shirt sponsor was welcomed by them.
- Author
Olivia Cole
