The greasy tentacles of bookmakers are spreading further and wider across the football pyramid

Picture this: an episode of PAW Patrol begins and as Ryder, the 10-year-old lead character, calls the dogs to the Lookout for their latest mission he has “bet365” splashed across his jacket, then as Marshall, Rubble, Skye and Co take the slides down to their vehicles they, too, have “bet365” on each of their paws.

Or how about this: Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger turn up at Hogwarts in their Gryffindor robes with “BetWay” stuck on one of the wide sleeves in one of the films. Or this: In the next Pokemon video game Pikachu has ’32 Red’ emblazoned on his yellow belly.

It would be ridiculous, right? You cannot possibly have betting companies advertising their brands and websites to easily-influenced children.

Football is now entertainment

Why, then, is football different? Football took tentative steps across the boundary between sport and entertainment when it signed the first ever television deal with Sky in 1992 and has been blurring the line between the two ever since. For most young people now, several times per week they see their club’s main protagonists — their heroes and idols — striding around on the pitch and online with betting logos plastered in the centre of their chest. Perhaps on the sleeve, too. Or a training top.

They see it when their club signs a new player. They see it when there is an interview with a player on the club website. They see it when their dad wears the shirt to town.

So football cannot deny its complicity in the alarming increase in child gamblers, which quadrupled in the space of two years to 450,000 of them, aged between 11-16, regularly placing bets, a fifth of whom are considered problem gamblers, in the Gambling Commission’s latest figures.

In some cases, schoolchildren will now bet on their team’s rivals to draw or win against them, so that they end the game as a winner either way.

Non-league recently tainted

For thousands of people, non-league football has been considered a space for their children to enjoy football away from betting companies who are infecting communities and decimating the lives of vulnerable members of society.

Yet this summer, gambling’s greasy tentacles slithered their way down to the lower echelons of the game, with BetVictor recently announcing a two-year deal to sponsor the Isthmian League, the Southern League and the Northern Premier, which include 12 divisions and 228 clubs. They form the seventh and eighth tiers of the English football pyramid which feeds into the National League North and South, which feeds into the National League (formerly the Conference), and then on into the Football League (one of whose main sponsors is Sky Bet).

But — get this — some of the clubs have taken a stand. Carshalton Athletic chairman Paul Dipre wrote to the Isthmian League to protest, declaring that they would not advertise BetVictor anywhere it could influence minors. Which, again, should be considered everywhere around a football club.

‘Normalising’ gambling

“We are a community club used by many thousands of minors each year,” Dipre said. “Any advertising of online gambling brands or services in any capacity, in any area of the club’s ground, on its kit or via our online platforms will put those minors in danger. The danger is that they see their role models, their community club, their football club ‘normalising’ online gambling brands. For this reason, we have objected to play any part in promoting the name ‘BetVictor’ or its brands.”

Hitchin Town, my hometown club, last week also posted a statement. Within it, they said they would not promote BetVictor in any activities involving youth players or children and would not sell any BetVictor branded merchandise. The post was eventually removed. Other clubs are said to have dissented.

It appears the backlash has worked to a certain extent, with communications being sent suggesting that clubs will not be forced to feature BetVictor on their shirts or advertising hoardings.

Even so, it has dismayed some people within the non-league community that a place where children could be taken to watch football away from the constant bombardment of betting companies in the Premier League and Football League has now been tainted.

Ruining lives

The other end of the pyramid is an entirely different story, where the majority of clubs are swimming merrily in gambling cash. As of next season, half of the Premier League will list betting companies as their main shirt sponsor. The top six have the fortune to be big enough to resist, but of the rest only Southampton, Sheffield United, Brighton and Leicester will not. In the Championship is an even grimmer picture: with 17 of the 24 clubs doing deals with the devil(s), including 32 Red, 10 Bet, Boyle Sport (with a handy, THIS IS BETTING tagline on Birmingham City’s shirt, just in case that 12-year-old fan wasn’t 100 per cent sure), dafabet, SportPesa, bet365 and yobet (apologies if any were missed — there are so many).

At some point sense will surely prevail and the practise will be banned, but until then football and gambling executives will continue counting their cash, while the lives of thousands of children are ruined before they have even properly begun.