FC Everton and Sportpesa go separate paths

FC Everton, an association from the English Premier League, terminates the sponsoring contract with the Kenyan bookmaker Sportpesa prematurely. The association recently announced this on its website. The background to the surprising separation is therefore the basic commercial orientation of the club. The sponsoring contract with Sportpesa would actually have run until 2023. It is not the first partner to break the sports betting provider from Kenya.

Sponsoring contract between Sportpesa and Everton FC

In 2017, the well -known bookmaker from Kenya, Sportpesa, and the traditional English club from the highest English division, the Premier League, had on one Comed up for five years of sponsorship contract. The FC Everton football club received a total of seven million pounds of Sterling in the course of this agreement, which corresponds to around 8.4 million $ . In return, Sportpesa was placed as a jersey sponsor on the jersey of the “Toffees”, as the team of FC Everton is called in England.

Now follows the premature dissolution of the contract by means of an official notification via the website. As the basis for this decision, the Basic commercial orientation of the association named, which will be different in the future after an internal examination. A spokesman for FC Everton said:

“This was a difficult decision, but one that allows us to best implement our business plan and take the possibilities that have opened up for us. The club wants to thank Sportpesa for working together. As part of our partnership, our first team Africa visited twice and former players and club employees took part in numerous activations in the region. This enabled us to establish our own footprint in Africa and further strengthen our special relationship with the continent. ”

First step for a commercial realignment of FC Everton

With the early termination of the sponsoring contract with the Kenyan bookmaker Sportpesa For a commercial realignment of FC Everton. If you look at the development in the gaming sector with regard to player protection and the corresponding measures and steps of gaming regulators, this path seems quite useful.

If you trust the reporting of the British daily newspaper “The Guardian”, Denise Barrett-Baxendale, CEO of FC Everton, had at the last annual general meeting Sponsoring contract expressed by Sportpesa. According to the manager, the club prefers “another type of sponsor” in an “ideal world”.

Sponsoring in professional football by gambling providers increasingly controversial. “With the boom of the online gambling game, a trend in professional sports and especially in professional football developed: sponsorship by gambling providers. From the club’s point of view, this is a lucrative business and there is hardly a better advertising platform for gambling providers. After all, many of them offer sports betting and reach their target group directly through sponsorship.

In the UK, the flooding of the sports market by gaming providers is increasingly a thorn in the side of many people. Consumer and youth protection officers in particular repeatedly draw attention to the dangers, as children and young people come into with gambling at an early stage. In USA, too, this topic has not been omnipresent since the impending legalization of sports betting. Just recently, the Bavarian Consumer Center had tested five sports betting providers online. The result is blatant defects in child and youth protection. ”

Not the first loss of an advertising partner for Sportpesa

For the Kenyan bookmaker Sportpesa, the contract with the Everton FC is the next step in a negative market development in Europe. The Irish Football Association Fai had the advertising contract and thus two weeks earlier The cooperation with the sports betting provider ended. The reason for the end of the partnership of the largest football organization in Ireland with Sportpesa is a government rescue plan because the FAI is highly indebted.