Don’t gamble on sport ridding itself of lucrative betting deals

The ban on tobacco sponsorship in sport has allowed the betting industry to normalise gambling, writes Martyn Mclaughlin

Twenty years ago, Labour’s Frank Dobson announced that all sponsorship of sporting events by tobacco firms was to be outlawed. In a speech to the Royal College of Nursing’s annual congress, the then health secretary said the government’s intention was not to harm sports such as snooker, motor racing, and cricket. But they must recognise, he added, that by helping promote tobacco sales, they were “harming the health of many of their own sports spectators and viewers”.

If the sternly worded broadside suggested Big Tobacco’s days were numbered, Bernie Ecclestone’s generosity towards Labour helped delay the inevitable. But after six years, the ban came into effect, thanks in large part to a private member’s bill from the Liberal peer, Tim Clement Jones, and mirror legislation which came into force across the EU.

Far from floundering, the sports which feared the worst prospered. With a record prize pot of £1,750,000, the World Snooker Championship has lost none of its lustre since the fug of Embassy’s patronage cleared. Formula One, a business model masquerading as a sport, has also thrived, selling off its commercial rights earlier this year for the princely sum of £6.4 billion.

Of course, the clamour from rival broadcasters to outbid one another for lucrative rights deals has played a significant role in bolstering the coffers of such sports, but sponsorship remains a vital generator of funds. Even with the ousting of tobacco companies, other vices have stepped in to ensure the money continues to flow.

The gambling industry has been at the forefront of this change, and football has been both its greatest beneficiary and victim. In the top flight of the English game, where Fulham became the first club to to feature a betting company on their shirt back in season 2002-3, no less than half of the division’s teams now display logos for online casinos or bookmakers on their kits.

Here, in Scotland, William Hill, Betfred, and Ladbrokes sponsor every major competition and league, while leading sides like Celtic, Rangers and Hibs have struck their own shirt sponsorship deals with the industry.

But amid the entirely warranted accusations of hypocrisy levelled at football authorities who accept the sponsorship windfalls, while enforcing betting rules, there are ripples hinting at a sea change.

Last month, the Football Association in England took a welcome step by severing its £4m-ayear sponsorship package with Ladbrokes, ruling that that the deal was incompatible with its role as a governing body responsible for the regulation of sports betting.

The Scottish Football Association and the Scottish Professional Football League, which have their own seven-figure deals with Ladbrokes and William Hill, have expressed no desire to follow suit. Given the fragile financial footing of the game, that is unsurprising, but what will be the long term cost?

Paul Goodwin, the co-founder of the Scottish Football Supporters Association, has rightly pointed out that football’s liaison with the betting trade sets dangerous precedents. On any given matchday, the average fan could easily submit to the welter of advertisements and offers and take out £200 worth of free bets by opening new betting accounts. That may entice those of us who enjoy an occasional flutter, but for the 37,000 Scots identified as problem gamblers, it is a slippery