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By Tony Attwood
There has been a really significant move in relation to club funding today as the Gambling Commission has published a note in which it informed Everton that its shirt front sponsor cannot be its sponsor after 11 March, owing to the fact that on that day, the sponsor, a gambling company, will not be operating in the UK. Details are being published in the Telegraph.
This is not he first notice of this type to be sent to a club, in that .Nottingham Forest and Leicester City have been sent, or are about to be sent (depending on which news source you follow) written warnings along the same lines.
In essence, the clubs will be fined, and if then immediate notice is not taken of the warning, senior staff will be charged with criminal activity and (assuming they are found guilty, which seems extremely likely since the case is so simple) they will be fined personally, and should they not pay those fines, they will be imprisoned.
Quite simply, advertising or promoting gambling companies that are not licensed to operate in the UK, is a criminal offence. And here we must remember that this is not an issue about taking down adverts for these entities. For in terms of Everton, Nottingham Forest and Leicester City we are talking about a major player in the financing of the club.
The Gambling Commission, which is an official UK department which licenses all gambling activities in the UK, has said that it has sent written warnings to the three clubs. If they continue to ignore the warnings then not only could the club be fined but so could the directors be fined individually, and if they are in the UK, arrested and imprisoned.
It is also extremely likely that other sponsors and advertisers with the club will not want to be associated with a club engaged in overtly illegal activity, and the financial consequences for the three clubs could be catastrophic. Quite how they got themselves into such a mess is unclear. Presumably, their legal teams are either not up to scratch, or their board is of the type that believes that “they wouldn’t do that to us”. The PL is saying yes, it will.
It is also being reported that Everton might have found a legal loophole, relating to having a global partnership, but it is not clear that the other two clubs can use that excuse.
It certainly appears from reports that the Nottingham Forest shirt sponsor is Kaiyun which appears on the Forest shirts, is not licensed. And indeed they also are what is rather coyly known as an “official partner” of Chelsea, who thus might also be dragged into the argument.
The Premier League has stated that there will be no more gambling sponsorship from the season after next and then onward. Meanwhile, the Gambling Commission has announced it will be writing to clubs warning them that if they do anything to promote an unlawful gambling corporation the fines and penalties could be huge, and that “not knowing quite what the sponsor did” will not be acceptable as an excuse.
In what seems to be a strongly worded letter the Gambling Commission has informed Premier League clubs that if they are caught promoting gambling organisations that are not licensed in the UK, that it is not just the clubs that will be fined but also the directors will be held personally responsible, and their assets can be seized.
Particularly interesting is the suggestion that the Commission has already been investigating the gambling company associated with Nottingham Forest, and they have been given a final warning. The company itself has been investigated by the Gambling Commission and has seemingly been served with an enforcement action notice.
So it does look as if Nottingham Forest might have worked to comply with the Commission just in time, but it is not clear if Everton has done so, and that might start causing some questions to be asked as Everton head toward their new ground for next season.
