Yesterday night, it became clear that a total of seven UK online gambling sites would be given live-streaming rights for FA Cup matches under the TV and media rights deal Casino Guardian already reported about. The agreement that runs until 2024 was inked by the Football Association surprisingly, after several years ago the football governing body of the UK announced a decision to end all of its gambling operator sponsorships.
The deal fuelled the harsh criticism, as campaigners who are against the massive growth of the gambling companies’ popularity and association with football. As Casino Guardian already reported, British customers have been given the chance to watch live FA Cup matches on bet365’s official website and mobile application. Now, it has become clear that six more gambling brands, including William Hill, Ladbrokes, Coral, Paddy Power, Betfair and Unibet, would receive the same rights to provide streaming of live FA Cup matches to their customers, usually in return to a bet or a money deposit in their account.
As a matter of fact, these rights are not sold directly to the above-mentioned companies by the British Football Association. The global betting rights on the FA Cup has been sold to IMG, a marketing company, in a deal worth £3.1 million on an annual basis. Then, on its turn, IMG sells the packages to other companies.
It was revealed that similar streaming rights were sold by IMG to other online gambling operators on a global scale but, for the time being, refused to provide a list of those companies.
Football Governing Body Says Agreements with Betting Companies Would Be Reviewed Before 2024/35 Season
The deals have actually been active since the beginning of the previous football season but the football governing body is facing criticism now because only a few days ago a campaign promoting mental health improvement was popularised at third-round matches.
The fact that the aforementioned deals were agreed and finalised via IMG and not by the Football Association itself before the final decision was expanded to a total of seven sponsorship agreements with leading betting operators, was highlighted by the FA. A spokesman of the Association shared that the media rights deal with IMG was agreed in early 2017 before the governing body had made a decision to put an end to its sponsorship deal with Ladbrokes.
Back in May 2017, the FA surprisingly ended its official betting partnership with Ladbrokes and said at the time that it would no longer be part of any sponsorship agreements with gambling operators.
As Casino Guardian already reported, the governing body has also revealed that it will review the sale of FA Cup matches betting rights before the agreements are renewed for the 2024/25 season. Still, the recently revealed media rights deals have been under fierce criticism considering the previous anti-gambling policy followed by the Football Association and the measures it has been taking to keep gambling away from professional football.
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Olivia Cole
