Football: The Changing Face of the English Premier League Shirt Sponsorship
By Prof Dr Ian Blackshaw
Once upon a time, the shirts of English football leading clubs were adorned with household brands - but not anymore.
With the global reach of the English Premier League (the League), many companies, which now sponsor football shirts, operate outside the UK, are not interested in trying to sell any of their goods to UK football fans.
Although the League self-imposed ban on front-of-shirt gambling sponsors is scheduled to come into effect before the 2026-2027 season, 11 clubs feature a gambling sponsor on the front of their shirts, which is an increase of three from last season.
The combined value of shirt sponsorship deals involving clubs in the League and gambling companies in the 2024-2025 season is reported to amount to US$135.43m (around €119.86 million).
The other nine clubs in the League are sponsored by companies from four industries, namely, air travel, entertainment, financial services and technology.
As mentioned, nowadays, none of the front-of-shirt sponsorship companies are aiming to sell physical products or services that fans can buy directly from them, and only one is headquartered in the UK, namely Liverpool FC Bank partner, Standard Chartered, which does not allow UK fans to open a current account with them.
Industries, such as technology, construction and clothing, have almost completely disappeared from football shirts.
The average distance between a club and their shirt sponsor's main office, currently, is 4,431 miles, reflecting the global appeal of the League.
Advances in technology have also played a role in shifting the dynamic of modern sponsorship; big business and wider influence is increasingly what sponsor companies are aiming for, rather than the cash from the pockets of the fans in the stands.
In the UK, there are around 70 million people, but worldwide there is a marketplace of billions.
As the global financial picture has dramatically changed, companies in countries, which enjoyed booming economies in the early 90s that have now weakened, such as Japan, have become less common as football shirt sponsors.
Meanwhile, new money in modern financial strongholds, such as the Middle East, is being spent on football sponsorship deals.
It is well known that sponsorship companies gain much more from partnerships with football clubs than mere advertising. For example, access to private boxes can be used to host clients; photoshoots with superstar players can be used in corporate promotional material; and relationships can, in some cases, be used for political leverage, for example in the Middle East, especially in Saudi Arabia.
The League does not have an official gambling partner, but UEFA announced its first formal gambling sponsorship last summer.
It appears that gambling companies are also the most common sponsors of top division football clubs in Belgium, Greece, Hungary, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, and Russia.
The top industries for shirt sponsorships in the top divisions in Europe are:
- Gambling (15%);
- Retail (12%);
- Air travel; automotive; financial services; food and drink (all 10%).
It may be added that, in the English Championship, gambling is also the most popular category of shirt sponsorships with six clubs, namely, Burnley, Middlesbrough, QPR, Stoke, Sunderland, and Watford.
There are no gambling sponsors of shirts in League One and League Two. The most common industries in those divisions being energy, automotive, and food and drink.
In the Scottish Premiership League, Celtic, Dundee United and Rangers are sponsored by gambling companies.
Market Research has demonstrated that gambling advertisements were shown more than 29,000 times in the UK during the first weekend of the current Premier League season, almost trebling the previous campaign's figure.
According to the UK Gambling Commission latest figures, gambling companies earned revenue of £15.1billion (around €13.27 billion) between April 2022 and March 2023. That income has provided them with plenty of funds to spend on advertising. And with the front-of-shirt sponsorship ban looming, some believe that they will switch their advertising into other areas, such as pitch side hoardings and, perhaps, shirt sleeves sponsorships.
Under-18s are not allowed to wear shirts with gambling sponsors, which means that young players feature in matches with sponsor-free jerseys.
In fact, Leicester City's 15-year-old winger, Jeremy Monga, played wearing a shirt without the club's gambling sponsor on the front, when he made his debut against Newcastle United earlier in April.
To complete the picture, none of the League's six wealthiest clubs, namely, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur, feature a gambling firm on the front of their shirts.
Targeting clubs lower down the League, which may face a much higher risk of relegation and the potential economic insecurity that comes with it, is a means for gambling companies to associate themselves with the League, without having to pay top-level sums.
Finally, it may be added that UK fans are not able to place bets with some of the gambling companies that feature on their club’s football shirts fronts.
Instead, so-called 'white label' companies use sponsorships of League clubs to target customers in other markets.
Some of the gambling sponsors are based in tax havens, such as Curacao and Malta, which, if their corporate and management arrangements are structured properly, allows them to tax shelter some of the profits that they earn as a result of their sponsorships. But that is another matter in its own right!
Prof Dr Ian Blackshaw may be contacted by e-mail at ‘
