Does the Premier League Have a Gambling Problem?

The Premier League announced today that it has come to an agreement with clubs to "withdraw gambling sponsorship from the front of their matchday shirts". This will make it the first sports league in the UK to do so. The change will come into effect at the end of the 2025/26 season.

Behind only perhaps the renaming of a stadium, the middle of a teams' jersey is prime advertising real estate. As the infographic below shows, in no other major European league is this being taken advantage of more than in the Premier League. This season, almost half (8) of all top-flight clubs are sponsored by a company in the gambling industry. This compares to 2 in France's Ligue 1, and just 1 in Spain's La Liga. Italy's Serie A and Germany's Bundesliga have none.

In Italy, any kind of gambling-related football sponsorships have been banned by the government since 2019 (prompting significant pushback from Serie A at the time and during the pandemic).