Can see this getting a bit messy.
Government source criticises club's record £10m-a-year deal with Stake.com as 'a real strategic error' before imminent ban
www.telegraph.co.uk
Everton slammed for 'short-sighted' shirt sponsorship deal with gambling firm
Government source criticises club's record £10m-a-year deal with Stake.com as 'a real strategic error' before imminent ban
Everton have signed a gambling company as their main shirt sponsor in defiance of plans to ban such deals and despite previously stating they would ideally not do so.
A government source told Telegraph Sport the club had made “a real strategic error” by agreeing a minimum three-year partnership with Stake.com ahead of the imminent publication of a White Paper following a review of the Gambling Act.
Campaigners against front-of-shirt gambling sponsors also condemned the club for a “remarkably short-sighted” decision during a “cost-of-living crisis”, adding: “How can Everton continue to call itself ‘The People’s Club’?”
The forthcoming White Paper had been due to stop short of outlawing such deals, with ministers expecting
Premier League teams to adopt a voluntary ban.
But the Telegraph has been told that could change after financially-stricken Everton announced a record partnership worth more than £10 million-a-year on the same day top-flight teams were due to discuss the issue at their annual general meeting in Harrogate.
“It’s a real strategic error by Everton and might force the Government to go further in its plans around sponsorship,” a Whitehall source said.
They subsequently signed a three-year contract with online car retailer Cazoo but terminated that a year early as well.Everton signed the deal barely two years after terminating a similar partnership with Kenyan gambling giant SportPesa two years early, with chief executive Professor Denise Barrett-Baxendale stating at the time: “In an ideal world, moving forward, we would look to have a different type of sponsor on the front of our shirts, like all football clubs would, but that is a commercial decision that we make as a football club.”
Their deal with Stake.com, which sponsored Watford last season, comes after they suspended all commercial and sponsorship activities with companies linked to Alisher Usmanov, who was sanctioned over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
That compounded record losses of £371.8 million posted by the club in the previous three financial years.
Leeds United and Burnley last month threatened to sue both the Premier League and club over the scale of the losses unless they could prove how they had lost so much without breaking profit and sustainability rules.
Everton insisted they had complied with those rules.
Everton’s Stake.com partnership was condemned by Charles Ritchie, co-founder of Gambling with Lives, who lost his son Jack aged 24 to gambling-related suicide five years ago.
He said: “To announce this partnership on a day when research reveals
hundreds of thousands of people are losing thousands of pounds each year on the most
addictive online gambling products – with a third of these from most-deprived areas – is remarkably short-sighted, especially during a cost-of-living crisis.
“There are more than 400 gambling-related suicides in England each year and the way in to gambling for many is through football. Many Everton fans also come from deprived areas and many will become addicted to gambling and, tragically, some will die.
“How can Everton continue to call itself ‘The People’s Club’?”
Prof Barrett-Baxendale said: “Stake.com is an ambitious organisation with impressive growth plans and we’re all very excited to enter into a partnership with them at this stage in their journey.
“My talented colleagues in our new revenue team have made excellent progress in recent months and worked tirelessly to secure what is the biggest main partnership deal in the club’s history – I’d like to congratulate them on this achievement and, on behalf of everyone at the club, express my gratitude to Stake.com for choosing Everton as a long-term partner.”
