Vice principles

The ban on gambling shirt sponsors is welcome, but history shows us the industry will find a way

By DANIEL O’NEILL, FABIOLA CREED and JAMIE BANKS

The Premier League’s 2026-27 ban on front-of-shirt gambling sponsors may feel like a victory for fans’ health and wellbeing. However, in the hyper-commercialised world of modern football, the move is more akin to a consolation goal. Advertising for unhealthy, and often addictive, products is everywhere. For instance, it’s now standard for clubs and competitions to have official beer and betting partners, while token messages urge fans to “drink responsibly” and practise “safer gambling”.

In some ways, these developments feel natural for a sport which has traditionally been associated with drinking, smoking and gambling. However, the history of unhealthy sponsorship reveals that football’s intoxicating culture has been shaped and boosted by various industries over the past 150 years.

From the late 19th century, tobacco companies sought to capitalise on the growing popularity of football among the working classes. Successful players endorsed specific brands. Dixie Dean recommended that “young footballers” smoke Wix cigarettes because, according to Dean, they “have never affected my throat or prevented me from keeping my eye in when I am shooting for goal”.

When smoking was linked with diseases such as lung cancer, restrictions on cigarette advertising were introduced in the mid- 1960s. The tobacco industry began sponsoring sport to get around such controls. However, football authorities proved reluctant to accept tobacco sponsorship, in contrast to other sports. Instead, cigarette firms practised a form of piggy-back marketing and exploited football’s general reputation to promote company and brand names. For instance, Rothmans funded a highly successful series of yearbooks which ran from 1970 until 2002. These were stopped following the introduction of the Tobacco Advertising and Promotions Act which banned all forms of tobacco sponsorship in British sport. It was the alcohol industry that proved to be a key driver of commercialisation in the professional game. In the context of dwindling attendances, mounting costs and an image problem, alcohol companies offered a financial lifeline to football.

In 1970 , the brewers Watney Mann experimented by sponsoring a new summer competition, the Watney Mann Invitation Cup. In the words of Watney’s promotions manager, it was hoped the competition would correct the brand’s stuffy image, helping it appeal to the “cloth hat and muffler brigade”. The cup was short-lived, running for four seasons from 1970 , but other alcohol brands, such as Skol and Tennent’s lager, went on to sponsor major Scottish competitions during the late 1970s and 1980 s.

In contrast, English football authorities proved slower to accept alcohol sponsorship, fearing further damage to the game’s reputation. Instead of sponsoring competitions, companies made front-of-shirt deals with individual teams.

In 1980, Scottish & Newcastle Breweries struck a deal with Newcastle United, paying an initial £100,000 to feature the brewer’s blue star logo on Newcastle’s strips and install a branded scoreboard at St James’ Park. Other teams soon followed, with Guinness sponsoring Queens Park Rangers and Ind Coope and Holsten linking up with Leicester City and Tottenham respectively. This rapid growth of alcohol sponsorships proved to be a source of concern. Some doctors felt such advertising encouraged people to drink more, and others were uneasy at the prospect of children being turned into “walking billboards” by wearing shirts featuring alcohol brands.

However, the government were ambivalent about the issue, and alcohol sponsorship boomed. Bass backed the Premier League from the 1993-94 season under its lager brand, Carling. Between this, the company’s sponsorship of the Scottish Cup, and the Rugby Premier League, it was estimated that Bass were investing around £6 million a year into sport by 1994 . Similarly, the first five years of the Premier League saw brewing companies represent the largest portion of front-of-shirt sponsors (reaching 16 per cent at their peak) before beginning to decline in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The government was generally hesitant about strengthening the ties between gambling and football, despite a 1978 Royal Commission proposing a levy on football pools to help support football. During the 1990s, however, attitudes softened, and bookmakers filled the void left by the reduction in alcohol sponsorship. Clubs such as Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea began to enter into agreements with the likes of Ladbrokes, EuroBet and even the government-owned Tote Bet. Betting firms’ branding appeared on stadium hoardings, kiosks and on the first official club websites. Like television betting, these innovative digital spaces provided companies with a direct way to target fans using exclusive odds competitions, and the promise of VIP fan experiences.

The history of unhealthy sponsorship reveals that football’s intoxicating culture has been shaped and boosted by various industries over the past 150 years

During the second term of Tony Blair’s government, gambling laws were radically liberalised, and sport betting was promoted as a legitimate entertainment. These changes paved the way for the abundance of gambling advertising which dominates British sport today. In football, Betfair were the first gambling company to sponsor an English club’s shirt when striking a deal with Fulham in 2002 . Fast-forward to the 2025-26 season and 11 of the 20 Premier League clubs had gambling companies as front-of-shirt sponsors.

This longer history suggests current moves to roll back gambling sponsorship in football may struggle to achieve their desired impact. Firstly, the relationship between football and the gambling industry will be hard to disentangle because these partnerships emerged long before bookmakers first appeared on shirts.

Secondly, as history shows us, unhealthy industries are driven by finding new ways to associate their products with football. Gambling firms have long succeeded in using emerging technologies to dodge scrutiny. For these reasons, fans should remain sceptical about the advertising messages which continue to clutter up football and the motivations of the companies behind them.

This article stems from a Wellcome Trust-funded research project, Kicking the Habit: Historicising “Addictive” Sport Sponsorship in Britain, 1965-2025 . To find out more about the project, and share your own sponsorship-related memorabilia, visit the project’s website: kickingthehabit.uk