What's at Stake in depressing Chelsea sponsorship backlash?
The tone deaf nature of Chelsea's indulgence of gambling sponsorship only feeds a bigger monster that needs slaying
Elite men’s football in 2023 has become a battleground for social issues and geopolitical tensions beyond the simplicity of the beautiful game.
Shortly after Manchester City lifted the UEFA Champions League in Istanbul, a lot of the coverage reflected questions of their ownership and the alleged 115 breaches of Premier League regulations.
Chelsea themselves were embroiled in this over a year ago when Roman Abramovich was sanctioned by the UK Government following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Whether supporters like it or not, awkward questions that were neatly kept away to more intellectual circles are bursting through into the mainstream, becoming harder to ignore.
The discussion around sports washing and state influence in football clubs, Golf and even Video Games forms a broader issue. The game is becoming more socially conscious, wrestling with the grey in a complex world.
But within the English game specifically, one social issue that feels a lot clearer is the issue of gambling sponsorship. This is one area where tribalism should not play that much of a role (Unless you a fan of Paddy Power for some reason). It is telling that regulation has had to arrive to confront a sport that is soaked in gambling advertising in every corner of it.
Even if the 2025/26 ban of Premier League clubs having gambling sponsors on the front of their shirts may be a step forward, it really only tackles one segment. But that very act should send a clear message to clubs about where the energy in this debate is going, clubs are becoming more aware of its negative impacts.
That makes Chelsea reported willingness to sign a deal with Stake.com pretty distasteful. Stake brands itself as a “Cyrpto casino” in the headline of its website. The mere mention of crypto opens another can of worms that leads you down the murky waters of bitcoin and NFT’s.
I am not an expert in the issues of crypto, so I will link you to the extensive work in recent years of Joey D’Urso for The Athletic, and in the broader context of crypto – I would suggest this brilliant breakdown of this weird world by the YouTuber Folding Ideas which tackles the phenomenon of NFT’s and beyond.
D’Urso did a deep dive into Stake.com following the announcement of their partnership with Everton last year, again summarising the issues behind a company branding itself within the world of cryptocurrency.
The first issue that stems from Chelsea’s potential deal with Stake is it naturally contradicts the club’s own public stance in the past season. The Chelsea Foundation and academy scholars were in schools as recently as last year explaining the potential harms of gambling.
On the Stamford Bridge turf as recently as this April, Ediur Gudjohnsen, Gary Cahill and Jimmy Floyd Hasslebaink where present for the launch of the “Talk More Than Football” campaign in partnership with the club sponsor Three. To “promote conversations about mental health between men and raise awareness of Samaritans’ emotional support.”
Around the launch of this campaign, Gudjohnsen did an interview with Simon Mullock from The Mirror detailing how through gambling he had estimated he lost “around £6 million to the bookies - including a five-month period when he blew £400,000.”
He was then asked about the recent ban on gambling sponsorship from 2025 and he said: “In my opinion, the ban should have come in much sooner. What is it that highlights a club? It’s the shirt sponsor.
“You have every football fan, every kid in the world, with their eyes on the shirts of our biggest clubs every single day. A shirt sponsor is a strong message. Advertising is so influential.
“Everybody is affected by it because we see it on TV, on billboards, on football shirts. It’s become a part of our everyday lives. I think the ban sends out a really big, positive message.”
Those words feel even more powerful two months later given where his former club now stands.
The second part of this is Stake themselves who just by the anecdotal evidence of my YouTube comments, are not very popular. The Observer published an investigation into the Australian-based company, citing the ability through lax safety controls to bet with crypto under the age of 18.
Stressing the use of virtual private networks (VPNs) to bypass country restrictions on Crypto gambling. Even though Stake.com claimed it has implemented “stringent compliance processes”, tests by The Observer found that claim wanting.
“Using a VPN, the Observer was able to access Stake.com’s crypto gambling services from a UK location within seconds.
“When asked for age verification, reporters uploaded a photograph of a packet of Strepsils throat sweets instead of a legitimate form of ID such as driving licence or passport. This initially proved sufficient.
The reporters were then able to buy crypto via Stake.com, deposit it in a betting account, and proceed to lose the money on Stake.com’s slot machine games, such as Sugar Rush and Starlight Princess. It was also able to move the remaining funds into an online bank account. They could even buy crypto with one bank account and move the funds into another account, with Stake.com effectively operating as a digital currency transfer provider.”
You do not need to be an expert in gambling, crypto or PR to grasp how much of a potential nightmare Chelsea’s already under-fire ownership are potentially walking into here. Whilst Matt Law in The Telegraph cited that industry experts view Chelsea’s short-term deal with Stake as a “pragmatic” move, its potential ramifications are anything but shrewd.
Shortly after agreeing their deal with the company, Everton told Stake to stop using its imagery in an international promotion offering a $10 free bet to anyone who wagers $5,000 in the space of a week.
The reality is that should Chelsea complete this deal, shirts for kids will be sold without Stake.com on them due to regulations, something that is evidenced with Everton’s kit from last season. Beyond what that says morally, that your sponsor is unsuitable for young fans, the sight of a kit without a sponsor would probably be something more adults would flock to buy in their droves.
The Chelsea Supporters Trust, to which I’m an affiliate member of, released a statement on Sunday afternoon following a survey of their members on the issue.
“The Chelsea Supporters’ Trust does not believe that it is in the best interests of our members for CFC to associate with an online casino and betting company as the primary shirt sponsor.” The statement declared.
“On Friday 16th June, the Chelsea Supporters’ Trust issued an urgent question to its membership to ascertain views and opinions on this matter.
”Over 77% of our members strongly disagree or disagree with the use of an online casino and betting company as the primary shirt sponsor.
“We have today written to Chelsea FC on this issue and would welcome further dialogue on this subject with them.”
It is hard not to be cynical about what could play out next season with Stake in partnership with Chelsea.
As is the case with Chelsea’s main current sponsors Three, they have a lavish box in the same West Stand tier where you regularly see Todd Boehly and the club’s executives. It is not uncommon to see influencers invited into these boxes for matches, sharing their grand and bourgeois match-day experience on social media.
You can imagine a nightmarish trend of bitcoin bros soon tagging along, citing the praises of Stake.com as the crypto grift goes on, now with the signed and sealed approval of a major Premier League club. Whilst this is a slightly extreme hypothetical, the idea things like this even need to be concerned about feel astonishing.
Gambling has enough of a presence in English football, probably too much. Good luck finding any form of content around football in the UK without some gambling sponsorship added on. Podcasts, radio shows, YouTube channels and the main broadcasters.
Chelsea indulging in gambling sponsorship so close to this ban is not only tone deaf, its likely self-defeating to those who are already questioning the direction under the Boehly and Clearlake regime after a pretty terrible first season.
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