Bill Mummery, the chief executive officer of e-gaming company Celton Manx, has said that restrictions on gambling sponsors of the premier league has been a ‘long-time coming’.
It comes as this month premier league clubs have agreed to stop featuring gambling sponsorships on the front of the shirts by the end of the 2025-26 season.
Gambling sponsors will still be allowed on the sleeves of shirts.
The gambling and e-gaming sector takes up over a fifth of the Manx economy.
Celton Manx provides a platform for sports, has betting and casino games, and also sponsors Leeds United.
The chief executive of the company told Manx Radio: ‘A number of years ago SBO [a trading name of Celton Manx] was the first e-gaming company to sponsor in the premier league, it was with West Ham and we said that we’re a responsible, regulated, adult leisure industry, we cannot put our brand on the junior shirts or on children’s replica shirts and we gave that valuable platform to the Bobby Moore Cancer charity believing that was both appropriate, responsible and supportive of the history of Bobby Moore and West Ham.
‘I think the industry has shown that it has had a responsible attitude towards the communities in which it is involved.
‘It’s lovely to go into a stadium and see the brand of which you are rightly proud of on the front of the shirt, but question whether it is the most effective, you will have seen that other forms of advertising, particularly the digital boards around the perimeter of the pitch are not affected
‘It is a train that has been coming towards us for some time, we have a very strong and healthy relationship with Leeds United whom we currently sponsor and the quality of the relationship that exists between the clubs and the respective sponsors, I am sure we will work through this together.’