Gambling operators now account for more than half of front-of-shirt sponsors in the English Premier League, after de announcement of the latest agreement. AFC Bournemouth players will this season wear shirts emblazoned with the bj88 logo.
An unknown brand in the UK, bj88 is powered by TGP Europe, the same company behind the Stake.com brand. TGP Europe is licensed by the Gambling Commission in Great Britain. While currently focused on Asia and also with presence in Latin America, bj88 will seemingly soon expand into the UK.
AFC Bournemouth joins Aston Villa, Brentford, Crystal Palace, Everton, Fulham, Leicester, Nottingham Forest, Southampton, West Ham and Wolves in featuring gambling brands on their shirts during the 2024-25 season.
The mass influx is despite clubs last April collectively agreeing to halt accepting gambling-related sponsorship on the front of matchday shirts. This will not come into effect until the 2025-26 season. Deals agreed in the lead up to this are permitted as long as they conclude ahead of 2025-26.
The impending ban has seemingly had little impact on current activity. Aston Villa, Crystal Palace and Wolves have also all agreed similar shirt deals with Asia-focused brands during recent weeks.
Teams will still be allowed to work with gambling operators in other ways, such as having official partnerships in place and featuring branding on surfaces around the stadium and on training wear. Wolves, for example, last season featured the LeoVegas brand on the front of its training kit.
Against this backdrop, the Premier League this week joined several other UK sporting bodies in issuing new ‘socially responsible’ codes of conduct for gambling sponsorships to protect vulnerable viewers.
Focusing on football, the Premier League, the English Football League (EFL), the Football Association and the Women’s Super League formally agreed to adopt a new code. This covers gambling sponsorships used in English football, as outlined in the government’s gambling white paper.
Codes will be implemented at the start of the 2024-25 season and focus on four core areas: protection, social responsibility, reinvestment and integrity.
Source: iGB
