Why nine Premier League clubs may not have a front-of-shirt sponsor next season

Martin Macdonald

• 6 Apr 2026 08:30 CDT
• 3 min read

News

Nine Premier League clubs are facing the prospect of not having a main shirt sponsor for the 2026/27 season due to a ban on commercial deals with betting sites.

In April of 2023, the Premier League released a statement confirming that betting sponsors would be banned from the end of the 2025/26 campaign onwards.

"Clubs agree to withdraw gambling sponsorship from the front of their matchday shirts, the first UK sports league to do so," the statement read.

"Premier League clubs have today collectively agreed to withdraw gambling sponsorship from the front of clubs’ matchday shirts, becoming the first sports league in the UK to take such a measure voluntarily in order to reduce gambling advertising.

"The announcement follows an extensive consultation involving the League, its clubs and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport as part of the Government’s ongoing review of current gambling legislation.

"The Premier League is also working with other sports on the development of a new code for responsible gambling sponsorship.

"To assist clubs with their transition away from shirt-front gambling sponsorship, the collective agreement will begin at the end of the 2025/26 season."

Clubs have, therefore, had plenty of time to prepare new sponsorships.

The Guardian reports that nine Premier League clubs are yet to secure this for next season. At the moment, the clubs with betting sponsors on the front of official kits are Bournemouth, Aston Villa, Brentford, Burnley, Crystal Palace, Everton, Fulham, Nottingham Forest, Sunderland, West Ham and Wolves.

Bournemouth have already secured a new deal, as stadium sponsor Vitality will move onto the kit also. Brentford are close to agreeing a deal with job search website Indeed. Both clubs are accepting less lucrative deals than they have at the moment.

Two clubs that are set to sign more lucrative deals are Everton and Fulham, with financial services company CMC markets set to allow for a slight increase on their current deals with Stake and SBOBet.

Over the last few years, there has been a significant increase in betting sponsorships on shirts as companies from Asia were offering big-money deals to Premier League sides in order to raise awareness of their brands.

None of the 'big six' have betting sponsors front-of-shirt as Arsenal have Emirates, Tottenham have AIA, Liverpool have Standard Chartered, Man City have Etihad, Man Utd have Snapdragon and Chelsea have no sponsor.

There are concerns in the bottom half of the table that losing these lucrative deals could increase the financial gap between lower-ranked sides and the elite clubs.

“Nearly everyone is losing money,” one senior club executive told the Guardian.

“Outside the big six, shirt sponsorship offers have dropped by around 50% from a range of between £8m and £12m a season. There may be some exceptions but it is a very diffi­cult market. And with some clubs ­opting to switch sleeve or training kit partners to front-of-shirt, there is a knock-on effect for those deals too.”

Sleeve sponsors will not be impacted by this ban, but there could be separate legislation put into place to ban sponsors from companies without a UK license.

In 2025, Bournemouth, Fulham, Newcastle, Wolves and Burnley were warned by the Gambling Commission over their relationship with unlicensed TGP Europe.

They were all sponsored by betting websites run by the firm, which lost its UK licence after an investigation found it failed to "carry out sufficient checks on business partners" and breached "anti-money laundering rules".

The Guardian confirmed that around £80 million in revenue is set to be lost by clubs next year due to the betting front-of-sponsor ban.

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