Everton: Sky Sports pundit refuses to blame board as sponsorship issue could cost up to £10million-per-year
We’re delighted to welcome former Everton striker Kevin Campbell as our exclusive columnist. Each week the former Toffees captain will be giving his views on the biggest talking points at Goodison Park…
Everton having to change their shirt sponsor again as betting companies at outlawed has not uncovered a bad decision by the club according to Kevin Campbell.
The Times reported on 29 March that Premier League clubs are set to agree a voluntary ban on gambling companies as shirt sponsors, with one of the affected clubs suggesting it would cost up to £10million a year as such companies represent the most lucrative deals.
Everton were one of eight in this year’s top flight with betting sponsors and Campbell feels that strength in numbers shows it is not something the club deserve to be singled out for criticism over.
The Sky Sports pundit exclusively told Goodison News that this development wasn’t evidence of a misstep by the board, saying: “No because Everton aren’t the only one with a betting company on their shirts.
“You’ve got to remember these decisions are made after the event. You’ve already got your sponsors and stuff like that, then it comes out a year or two down the line that it’s no longer being allowed, Everton aren’t the only club that has to get another sponsor.
“So it’s not a bad decision. It’s a decision that’s affected by another decision around the league.
“It’s just something you’ve got to deal with.”
The club-record Stake.com deal was announced a year ago (9 June) at a time when the finances at Everton were already under scrutiny around the league, despite CEO Denise Barrett-Baxendale having stated two years prior that “in an ideal world” the club wanted to avoid such sponsors as they ended the partnership with SportPesa.
It has been anything but an ideal world in terms of sponsorship and financials at Goodison Park over the past two years so the club felt they had no choice to go back on that, with the severing of ties to Alisher Usmanov last season after the invasion of Ukraine also losing millions in investment via his companies.
Amid suggestions that the Toffees are again in the firing line of relegation rivals this year, and the Premier League referring the club to an independent commission over an alleged profit and sustainability breach, denied by Everton, it is possibly the last thing they need to have to find a replacement for the shirt-fronts on top.
Barrett-Baxendale’s statement three years ago suggested she saw something along these lines arising in the future, but as with so many issues of late it hasn’t stopped the club being affected all the same, so it will join the list of hurdles to clear now that the main one – top flight survival – has been safely negotiated.