Football across Europe ‘corrupted’ by gambling

Football clubs across Europe have become dependent on the gambling industry, Investigate Europe has revealed.

Across the 31 premier competitions in the UK and EU, two-thirds of teams (296 of 442) have signed at least one betting partner for the 2024/25 season. Almost half of leagues are reliant on title sponsorship from a gambling company.

In England, Premier League clubs have agreed to ban gambling logos from match-day shirt fronts from 2026 onwards.

Profit over people

Charles Livingstone, from the World Health Organization’s Expert Group on Gambling and Gambling Disorder, said betting firms spend millions on advertisements, and that 80 per cent of their revenue is from problem gamblers.

In the gambling industry’s view, he explained, “the best customers are those who go broke. So they constantly have to recruit new gamblers to replace the ones who have gone through all their money and all their assets and all their relationships.”

Kieran Maguire, football finance expert and lecturer at the University of Liverpool, said: “I don’t think there’s any desire by clubs to do due diligence, provided they get paid. And they’re prepared to not look too closely because they’re under pressure.”

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Thomas Melchior, who made his first bet after watching an advertisement during a Champions League match, accumulated €800,000 in gambling debt.

The former German bank employee said: “Betting companies exploited my passion for football to hook me in and completely change my life.”

He explained that rather than limiting his gambling after getting into debt, the companies encouraged it: “I ‘won’ a trip to London for the Premier League match between Chelsea and Liverpool, complete with flights and VIP tickets. It was a ‘prize’ for my customer loyalty. Or rather, for my gambling addiction, for which I was regularly rewarded.”

Tom Fleming, from The Big Step campaign, stated that football has become “corrupted by gambling”, and a “lot of those in recovery we speak with say they are unable to watch football because the advertising is so much, games are just inundated with advertising”.