The Bookmaker And The Isthmians

As the 1970s dawned, the Isthmian League was one of English football's last bastions of the amateur game.  Formed in 1905, its champions received no trophy, and players received no medals as the league lived by its motto, honour sufficit, - 'honour is enough.' For many years the constitution remained fairly static - membership was by invitation only - and with only one division, there was nothing so vulgar as promotion or relegation to trouble its member clubs. But during the 1970s, the Isthmian League became innovators, and were in the vanguard of change in football below the Football League as the distinction between amateurs and professionals was removed and the game went 'open.'

The Isthmian League logo

In 1973, the league became the first to be sponsored. Prize money was offered to successful clubs, but in an attempt to improve sportsmanship, there were deductions for cautions. The League was the first to adopt 3 points for a win, and also the first to use goal difference instead of goal average. The league's first sponsors were the tobacco company, Rothmans of Pall Mall, who were also sponsors of the British Olympic team in 1992, and of a highly successful football reference book. Today, tobacco company sponsorship in the UK is no more - it was banned in 2005 - and the number of smokers in England has consistently declined in recent years, while just this week, the government published a green paper in which it pledged to end smoking by 2030. That is an ambitious target since, despite incontrovertible evidence that smoking is detrimental to health, there are still over fourteen million people smokers in the country. Rothmans' sponsorship of the Isthmian League ceased in 1977, but this summer the league announced a sponsorship deal with a company from another somewhat controversial sector of the UK leisure industry, as we will see.

The number of people smoking in England shows a consistent decline over recent years.

The advertising of alcohol and the sponsorship of sporting events and teams, while not banned in the same way as tobacco, has seen constraints and decline in recent years. The UK's regulations on the advertising of alcohol are among the strictest in the world, and the sponsorship of English football clubs by drinks companies, once so prodigious, has declined to the point that by 2017, not one Premier League club had a sponsorship deal with a brewery or other drinks company.

Liverpool's sponsorship deal with Carlsberg was one of the last between a football club and a brewer.

While the sponsorship of football teams and competitions by tobacco companies and alcohol companies has declined, through legislation or otherwise, companies involved in a third major vice - gambling - are becoming increasingly involved in sports sponsorship. In 2018, nine Premier League clubs and seventeen Championship clubs were sponsored by bookmakers. The English Football League's three divisions are sponsored by a bookmaker - Skybet - and this summer, the Southern League, the Isthmian League, and the Northern Premier League announced a sponsorship deal with BetVictor.

For those of you unfamiliar with the structure of English football, the Southern, Isthmian, and Northern Premier leagues cover the seventh and eighth tiers of the game - that's 228 clubs - and the sponsorship deal with BetVictor is strictly regulated; in fact, that strict regulation has been the subject of much comment and debate. While I have no information on the value of the deal, I imagine that it is a lucrative one for the three leagues, and no doubt BetVictor believe it will be beneficial to them. They are ranked twenty-third among online bookmakers in the country, and presumably, this deal is about increasing brand awareness. As with tobacco companies and brewers, such advertising as is allowed is less about getting people to enter the market, more about getting them to buy your product rather than that of your competitors. Most people who smoke, or drink alcohol, or gamble, don't generally start because of advertising, but once they are consumers, it is advertising that plays a significant role in which company's product they use. Hence BetVictor are probably banking on the thousands of players, officials and supporters of those 228 clubs using their company rather than Coral, William Hill, or Bet365.

Among the restrictions that relate to bookmaker's sponsorship is CAP Code, or to give it its full name, The UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing, written and maintained by the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) and administered by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). This prevents anyone under the age of twenty-five featuring in marketing communications for a gambling brand (unless they are the subject of a bet being offered). Hence, earlier this year Spurs and William Hill found themselves in hot water for a tweet that featured a Spurs team line-up that included two under 25 year-olds, alongside a link to a page offering odds from the bookmaker.

A tweet like this saw Spurs fall foul of the CAP Code

Apart from the similar restrictions that will be imposed on the clubs in the three leagues now sponsored by BetVictor, the leagues have decided - possibly after some negative publicity - not to require clubs to feature adverts for the sponsors either in their programmes nor around their grounds, nor will clubs wear the sponsor's logo on their shirts, as was the case with Evo-Stik, Bostik or Ryman, who sponsored the various leagues in recent years. And - like Spurs - clubs cannot feature players who are under twenty-five on their websites, or on social media, on pages that include links to the sponsor's website.

Paul Dipre, chairman of Isthmian League side Carshalton Athletic, strongly disagrees with the sponsorship deal (you can read his statement here) and many supporters of clubs in the leagues have expressed their disquiet over it, especially since it is estimated by the Gambling Commission that in 2017 there were more than 2 million people addicted to gambling or at risk of developing a problem. Furthermore, the charity GambleAware found that problem gamblers face significant risks of suicidal thoughts, depression, substance abuse and financial problems. In 2013, Headingley AFC lost one of their players to suicide due to his gambling issues and the club are now sponsored by an anti-gambling charity. AFC Headingley play in the West Yorkshire League, so not one of the leagues sponsored by BetVictor. If they were, I imagine the league would be having an awkward conversation with the club over a conflict of interest.

Headingley AFC in shirts sponsored by the charity, Gambling With Lives.

Players, management, and officials of English football clubs in the top eight levels of the game are expressly prohibited from betting on football in any form; this means that a voluntary committee member at a club playing in English football's eighth tier cannot put a small bet on the outcome of the World Cup Final. While that may appear Draconian, it at least removes room for doubt; there are no grey areas, no loopholes, but for many people it smacks of double standards. Is it morally right for a sport that prohibits participants from betting on it, to be so intimately linked with the gambling industry?

A Twitter poll showed the disquiet many people feel about bookmakers sponsorship in non-League football.

Or, since money-spinning sponsorship deals don't grow on trees - not for teams and leagues below the highest echelons in any sport - is the disquiet and criticism that the deal with BetVictor has occasioned a little unfair - ungrateful, even - especially since, at present, bookmaking firms are sponsoring football to such a degree that it is becoming the norm, rather than the exception. And, just as tobacco sponsorship was outlawed, and just as alcohol sponsorship has waned, the day may come when through legislation or because the industry no longer sees it as worth its while, bookmakers stop sponsoring football. Who can blame these leagues for taking advantage before it's too late?

Bookies sponsoring football is now so commonplace that Huddersfield Town and Paddy Power mocked
up shirts that contravened FA regulations on the size of sponsor's logos for some extra publicity.

Despite the moral and ethical qualms that people may have, sponsorship from bookmakers is legal, heavily regulated, and lucrative. The fact that BetVictor are sponsoring all three leagues at this level could work against the sponsors, as supporters may drop the sponsor's name entirely. BetVictor could find that awareness of their brand is spread less than they hoped. That said, any publicity - even controversial, slightly adverse publicity - gets a brand's name in the public eye, like Huddersfield Town's prank Paddy Power sponsored kit, so I doubt that BetVictor's executives will be losing too much sleep over it.