WHEN THE FUN STOPS...
Scottish football needs a clean break from the bookies: JOHN GREECHAN
TIME to drop the pretence, discard all those diversionary arguments intended to distract from the dark heart of a murky business — and walk away from an addiction that is causing untold harm.
One man’s heavy burden may well have created a tipping point, leaving those still occupying the wrong side of this debate to be harshly judged by history.
A diminishing few will continue to declare that there is nothing inherently dangerous or damaging in football continuing to embrace the bookmaking industry, of course. But they’re losing the argument.
The case of Brian Rice cannot be dismissed as some tragic rarity. Not by anyone paying attention to the increasingly frequent string of horrific revelations emerging from within the betting industry.
Just a few days ago, Daily Mail business correspondent Tom Witherow produced a brilliant investigation into how one firm had ‘groomed’ gambling addicts by showering them with free cash bonuses and bombarding them with matey emails intended to keep them on the hook.
Employing ‘VIP managers’ who specifically struck up friendly relationships with high-volume gamblers, the company in question simply wouldn’t hear of customers walking away.
Thinking of quitting gambling entirely? Have a bonus. Hope your luck changes, mate. Have some free tickets to a major event, while we’re at it. And check out that odds boost…
When every last penny has been thrown into the abyss, of course, the tone changes.
Arrested for stealing from your employer? None of our business. Who are you, again?
This is the industry, opaque and offshore, unscrupulous and — for now — unfettered, that football has chosen as a key commercial partner.
The lawyers will insist that we stress the danger of using one — or two or even a dozen — case study as evidence of how every individual company deals with punters throwing thousands upon thousands into the system without control.
So, for the record, let’s just presume that the tactics exposed by Witherow do not apply across the board.
It’s also worth noting that, when a gambler is genuinely addicted, he or she will find a way around almost any restriction.
But there have been too many cases of corporate bookies doing too little to prevent genuine tragedy. Too many examples of customers being pushed far beyond any reasonable limits.
When you’re selling a product that has the potential to ruin lives and create misery for innocent families, surely there have to be some more stern controls.
And one of those should be an enforced breaking of the priceless link with the country’s most popular sport.
An industry as dangerous as gambling should not be able to launder its image by associating itself with football. Watch this space.
Last week’s column, prescient in an accidental sort of way, focused on the probability of the Department for Digital, Culture,
Media and Sport reforming the Gambling Act.
Among the proposals being considered is banning turf accountants from becoming shirt sponsors to football clubs. And a fresh look at bookmaking firms attaching their names to entire competitions.
Here in Scotland, where Ladbrokes, William Hill and Betfred sponsor the top four league competitions, the Scottish Cup and the League Cup respectively, developments are being followed with interest.
With all three of those deals expiring in the summer, there is an opportunity for the SPFL and the SFA to make a clean break.
In time, the three Scottish Premiership clubs sponsored by bookmakers — Celtic, Rangers and Motherwell — might be forced to follow suit.
Such a move should be welcomed by anyone with a basic understanding of how sport, as an entity, needs to be protected.
The things that make football, in particular, so special need to be kept clean.
If that means a dip in budgets while the sponsorship market corrects itself, fine. If it means living without Ray Winstone’s disembodied head barking the latest odds at us during the halftime ad break… oh well, we’ll live.
Working on the basis that no industry ever gives up a lucrative income stream without a fight, of course, we’ll have to be prepared for what comes next. The tactics are, at least, guaranteed to be predictable. We’ve already lived through stage one — denying that a problem even exists.
Next up is the bookies and their football cheerleaders admitting to a handful of minor issues, in certain extreme cases. All hopelessly exaggerated by scaremongers intent on spoiling the fun for everyone.
Then, in a final act of defending the indefensible, they will cry horror over the impending economic damage should the ‘radicals’ so much as tinker with the current model.
Straight out of the Opium Wars playbook, the plan is to fight a delaying action. Grabbing the last few quid as they retreat and regroup.
In the meantime, they’ll milk the football brand for all its worth, leaving behind victims like Accies boss Rice, now facing punishment from the very authorities who invited the bookies into the temple.
Should he be hit with a fine for his litany of offences, incidentally, Rice should just tell the SFA that he’s already paid them. Through their share of his losses over the years. Well, where else do they imagine all that sponsorship money comes from?