Kieran Maguire: West Ham handed boost by Government as £60m deal on the line
West Ham have been handed a boost by the Government’s decision not to force Premier League sides to abandon gambling sponsorship.
That is the view of finance guru Kieran Maguire, speaking exclusively to Football Insider about the Hammers’ relationship with online bookmaker Betway.
West Ham first partnered with Betway in 2015 and the current iteration of the deal, which football.london reports is worth £60million in total, runs until 2025.
Multiple reports suggested earlier this year that a Government-enforced ban on front-of-shirt gambling advertisements was imminent.
But per The Times on Tuesday (28 June), the ban will not be included in the list of recommendations in an upcoming review of gambling legislation.
The Government instead hopes that the Premier League and individual clubs can self-regulate.
But Maguire does not anticipate that the likes of West Ham will be quick to give up their lucrative sponsorship deals.
“There’s no significant desire within the industry to constrain itself in terms of maximisation of revenues,” he told Football Insider’s Adam Williams.
“We will see tokenism at best from clubs within the Premier League. In the Premier League, 19 out of 20 clubs have crypto or NFT partners. The only one that doesn’t, Brighton, is owned by a professional gambler.
“Expect to see tumbleweeds in terms of any actions from the Premier League itself and the clubs with regards to this.
Nobody in the gambling or football industry wants to hear about the negative consequences of gambling in terms of debt, prison, broken relationships, domestic violence and suicide.
“The industry sadly just sees all that as collateral damage.”
In other news, pundit suggests West Ham could now fix January error with “excellent” Arnaut Danjuma signing.