Original title: Behind the Shirt: Examining Trends in the Commercial Relationships Between English Premier League Football Clubs and Gambling Companies
The researchers examined gambling-company partnerships with five leading English Premier League clubs from 2000/01 to 2025/26. None of the clubs had gambling sponsors on the front of their shirts, but together they formed 91 other partnerships. The researchers checked each partnership for marketing features, such as offers for fans, online content and stadium adverts. These other promotions can continue after the shirt-sponsorship ban.
Imagine a school banning adverts on the front of students’ sports shirts. That stops one very visible kind of promotion, but it does not stop a company from sponsoring a match, offering prizes, or appearing in school posts online. In this paper, the shirt is just one place gambling companies can advertise; club partnerships also bring promotions to fans through offers, online content and stadium adverts.
Football fans may still encounter gambling promotions through club partnerships after shirt sponsorships are banned. The study identifies other ways clubs promote gambling companies, including offers for fans, digital content and pitch-side advertising.
The study examines five top-performing EPL clubs, not every club or football competition. It charts marketing features in the partnerships it reviewed; the abstract does not report how much fans actually saw or how these promotions affected gambling behaviour. Its conclusion that exposure is likely to persist is an expectation, not a measured post-ban outcome.
Ask anything about this paper. Answers come from its abstract, and say so when the abstract doesn't cover your question.
Behind the Shirt: Examining Trends in the Commercial Relationships Between English Premier League Football Clubs and Gambling Companies — Fabiola Creed, Heather Wardle — Wellcome Open Research — doi:10.12688/wellcomeopenres.27602.1
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.