‘Premier League’s betting shirt sponsor ban is a wake-up call for the EFL’, says Tranmere chairman Mark Palios

Former FA chief executive Mark Palios believes that the Premier League club’s decision to abandon front-of-shirt gambling sponsorship should act as a “wake-up call” to the English Football League and claims that the industry has “hijacked” the sport.

Earlier this month, the Premier League confirmed that the ban would come into effect from the start of the 2026-27 season to allow existing agreements between clubs and their sponsors to run their course. Currently eight of the 20 clubs in the top flight have a gambling company logo on the front of their shirts.

The commitment came following discussions between the Premier League and its clubs with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) ahead of the government’s long-awaited white paper to regulate the gambling industry which is set to be published on Thursday.

However, while the restrictions on gambling advertising have been welcomed, there has been criticism that the ban does not go far enough.

James Grimes, the founder of “The Big Step” campaign, said it was “totally incoherent” that the Premier League’s ban does not extend to shirt sleeves or advertising hoardings, a view that Tranmere Rovers’ chairman Palios shares.

“The recent decision by the Premier League to remove gambling as a front-of-shirt sponsor by 2026 is welcome although allowing it to remain on shirt sleeves doesn’t add up,” he said. “It’s either harmful or it isn’t.

“Self-regulation in both the gambling and football industries does not work. Marketing of addictive gambling products has hijacked the game, targeting the ripe and vulnerable demographic that all so often suffer from addiction, which in turn causes irreparable damage to people, relationships and communities.

“The Premier League’s acceptance of the harm should be a wake-up call to the EFL. It is incoherent for gambling sponsorship to continue in the lower leagues once current contractual arrangements expire. This is the moment to positively reset the relationship between gambling and football, across all levels.

“The inconsistency of this move leaves more questions than answers – what will happen with this new arrangement if a Championship club signs a five-year front-of-shirt deal with a gambling company and then gets promoted to the Premier League after one year?”

The Premier League is the first division in UK sport to have introduced restrictions on gambling sponsorship, however that hasn’t yet led to a trickle-down effect through the pyramid.

The EFL, which has been sponsored by Sky Bet since 2013, has voiced its opposition to constraints being imposed in the past, arguing that a loss of income from the industry could have a devastating effect on its clubs.

In October 2020, the EFL said in a statement: “With over £40m a season paid by the sector to the League and its clubs, the significant contribution betting companies make to the ongoing financial sustainability of professional football at all levels is as important now as it has ever been, particularly given the ongoing impact of the Covid-19 pandemic which is leaving many of our clubs living on a financial knife edge.”

However, Palios claims that message is a “scaremongering” ploy and rejects the notion that lower league clubs are dependent on gambling sponsorship in order to survive, calling it “relatively insignificant” to their wage and transfer budgets.

Tranmere, who are currently 11th in League Two, have been sponsored by the energy company Essar since the start of the 2019-20 season.

“The argument that the removal of front-of-shirt sponsorship would damage the game’s finances is partial, specious scaremongering that plays into the self-inflicted, parlous financial state of the football pyramid in this country,” he said.

“Whilst front-of-shirt sponsorship is one of the most valuable pieces of “inventory” a club has, it actually accounts for a relatively insignificant percentage of clubs’ playing budgets which are, in any event, a discretionary spend.

“At Tranmere, our non-gambling front-of-shirt sponsor is the equivalent of just seven per cent of our wage bill.

“As a consequence, the removal of the opportunity for having a gambling front-of-shirt sponsor is insignificant. This is especially so because it is not a zero-sum game and can be replaced. Even if the amount is reduced, it’s not the full sum. In addition, if all clubs are in the same position, what does it matter?”

The prevalence of gambling sponsorship in English football has grown steadily over the past two decades to the extent that a betting logo can be seen more than 700 times in a single Premier League match, according to research from the University of Glasgow.

Meanwhile, the UK’s gambling industry is reliant on football for almost half of its income from online sports betting. Between April 2021 and March 2022, gambling operators earned £2.4bn from sports bets, of which £1.1bn was on football, according to figures published by the Gambling Commission.

“The impact of front-of-shirt gambling sponsorship in football is made by virtue of its very existence,” said Palios. “The gambling industry wouldn’t spend so much on it if it didn’t work.”