Ivan Toney, who served a ban for betting on football, plays for a club owned by a player and sponsored by an online bookmaker Credit: Getty Images/Ian Kruger
Sandro Tonali's second FA gambling charge is a disgrace to the English game, which wants to show it is doing something about the ubiquity of the betting industry but can't stop taking money from it.< /p>
The same thing happened when Ivan Toney finally won his second cap for England last week and scored his first goal for his country under the same governing body that banned him for eight months for breaking gambling rules. Football knows its relationship with the giant online sports betting industry is problematic. The ban on betting and gambling sponsorships in 2026 is a symbolic gesture intended to signal disapproval that will disproportionately affect the least wealthy.
Online betting companies, many of which target overseas consumers of Premier League football watching from afar on television, will continue to flood the game. The most sensible way for football to benefit from its significant intellectual property would be through legislation imposing a levy on football similar to that on horse racing. Part of this may be teaching players and fans not to fall into the same black hole as Tonali.
The Premier League's ban on gambling advertising on shirts from the start of the 2026-27 season will make little difference. Clubs will still be allowed to sign betting partners. Millions of pounds will be spent advertising betting on LED boards around the perimeter and in the streets around stadiums. Same tiresome PR stunts, same free bets on games to convince you to download the app.
What it will do is cut into the income of the league's smaller clubs, for whom, unfortunately, online betting and cryptocurrency transactions are often the only things on the agenda. The biggest clubs that can attract software giants, financial services or airlines from the Middle East will largely be unaffected. T-shirts will look better. The game will sense that the line has been set. But it's just a gesture. Betting marketing will still be everywhere. However, access to their money will be closed to those whose commercial income is far from the income of the largest clubs.
An online betting deal on a team expected to finish in the bottom half of the Premier League could cost between £4 million and £10 million a year, depending on the state of the market. Fewer bibs available and an influx of companies trying to enter the market will drive more deals. For the 20th Premier League club to reach the Championship play-offs, this can sometimes work in its favor and sometimes not.
In the summer of 2022, Nottingham Forest — who entered Wembley on May 29 — began the next season in the Premier League without a sponsor. At the start of his second season in the Premier League, Forest, like many others who had held the position before, signed a contract with an online sports betting company.
Like others, they will find that these companies are among the few that can make quick decisions. They can close a profitable deal in a matter of weeks. Trying to attract a large corporate organization such as Standard Chartered in Liverpool or the former 3 Mobile of Chelsea can take more than 12 months of courtship and negotiations. There is simply no time now to sell newly promoted clubs with front shirts, relatively modest reputations and the pressure to quickly increase commercial revenues.
Many of these gambling companies are aimed at making huge profits from Chinese players in a country where Gambling is officially prohibited.
A far cry from what appears to be an innocent golden age of English football sponsorship: the 1980s. T-shirts were adorned by Japanese electronics companies, beer brands, car manufacturers or simply the West Bromwich Albion anti-smoking campaign. Even if these industries want to fill the void left by online betting in 2026, it's likely that the deals that are struck will have nothing to do with what these clubs can make from sports betting. In the meantime, the game closes its nose and chases money.
Aston Villa, aiming to become a Champions League club next season, have signed a two-year deal worth up to £20 million a year with Greek online betting company Betano, leaving Villa facing a ban. The fact that a club of Villa's stature is still in this market shows how difficult it is to attract deals. Shirt sponsorship has always been a difficult market, with brands requiring some convincing to sign expensive deals in exchange for benefits that are difficult to measure.
The odds are that the biggest clubs will always be attractive, including others — financial services brands with big marketing budgets vying for a breakthrough. For smaller clubs, where Premier League status can be won or lost every season, it is more difficult.
The sad story of Tonali and his gambling addiction is unlikely to change because he will no longer have a shirt with the name of the gambling company on his hook. At the rate he is receiving FA charges, it will probably be 2026 by the time he plays again.
The game is already drowning in stakes. Brighton and Hove Albion and Brentford are owned by people who have made their fortunes from the gambling industry. The same goes for the Coates family, who are trying in vain to get Stoke back into the Premier League. Meanwhile, football likes to pretend that it is defending its position. No gambling logos on children's size T-shirts. The FA has decided not to use a gambling partner. But these are individual positions against an overwhelming trend.
The tax will allow clubs to get a fair price from those betting companies that exploit football and the global obsession with the game to make huge profits. Hand-wringing over jersey brand bets just deprives the league's poor bottom half of another source of income. It would be much wiser to tax the betting industry for exploiting a sport it already dominates, but it is too late to save Tonali's reputation.
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