UK football players lace up for protest against gambling sponsorship
Several teams will take part in a campaign this weekend.
UK.- Several football clubs in the UK have announced their participation in a campaign against gambling advertising and sponsorship in the sport. The teams, including League One Forest Green Rovers, will wear yellow laces in weekend fixtures to show support for the Big Step campaign.
League One Rovers are playing an FA Cup first-round tie at South Shields on Saturday. Non-league and women’s teams are also supporting the yellow laces campaign, including the women’s sides Glasgow City and Lewes FC Women and the non-league teams Dulwich Hamlet, Billericay Town, Welsh side Llantwit Major and Headingley AFC.
Tranmere Rovers will take part by wearing yellow T-shirts during warm-up in their FA Cup round one clash against Carlisle United on Saturday. The initiative takes place during Addiction Awareness Week. The Big Step aims to end all gambling advertising and sponsorship in football. Currently, eight Premier League teams and six Championship teams have shirt gambling sponsorship.
Premier League clubs were due to vote on whether to adopt a voluntary ban on front-of-shirt gambling sponsorship. Meanwhile, the EFL has come under pressure to end its sponsorship arrangement with Sky Bet. However, the league is strongly opposed to a ban, saying its clubs would lose £40m a year.
The industry group, the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC), said: “The government has previously stated research did not establish a causal link between exposure to advertising and the development of problem gambling.
“It should also be noted that betting operators’ logos cannot be used on children’s clothing – including replica football kits – while the whistle-to-whistle ban has reduced the number of TV betting commercials viewed by children during live sports before the watershed by 97 per cent.
“We are encouraged by the latest figures from the Gambling Commission that showed the rate of problem gambling was 0.3 per cent of the population – down from 0.4 per cent the year previous.”
