Leeds United's 'big step' is a good look regardless of motives, finances or commercial reasoning - YEP 29/6/23

Pivoting away from front-of-shirt betting adverts prior to football's incoming ban is a good look for Leeds United, regardless of the motives.

By Graham Smyth

The Whites confirmed on Thursday that Boxt, a company with actual links to the city of Leeds, would replace gambling firm SBOTOP on the front of the shirts for the upcoming season. Boxt began life in offices on Elland Road in 2017, which in itself is a nice, neat story, but not the only nice aspect of all of this.

For young fans, for the first time in eight years, the shirts they can buy and wear will look exactly the same as the ones worn by their Elland Road heroes because Boxt can appear on a junior jersey where a betting advert cannot. The YEP understands the sleeve sponsor will also come from an industry other than the gambling business.

Cynics will argue that Leeds' move to a non-betting sponsor was forced on them by relegation but that's an easy one to bat away, because this is still Leeds United, the one on the tele all the time, the one whose shirts are worn in just about any country you might be lucky enough to visit. They're a huge draw in the Championship, the biggest arguably, and many, many eyeballs will be drawn to them over the course of the next season.

The YEP understands there were other betting firm options on the table when it came time to decide what would adorn the shirts, which is no surprise when you consider that seven of last season's Championship shirts had a gambling company logo on the front. Leeds themselves, in their last stint as a second tier outfit, wore the brand of 32Red.

This move to Boxt is not a signal that Leeds are cutting all commercial ties with the betting industry, but it does mean that gambling's presence in the game has been reduced. Even if it's just one team's shirt, for now. It's a shirt less than there could have been. That's the aim, for football, isn't it? To simultaneously wean itself off the betting teat and take the logos and names of gambling firms off the walking billboards that football shirts have become. When the new Leeds kits are released they will soon fly off the shelves and onto the streets, parks, pubs and playgrounds of this city, its surrounds and beyond. For the first time in a long time a gambling logo will not go with them.

Other clubs appear to be cashing in while they still can, inking new deals with that industry ahead of the 2026 ban. That's not such a good look and if Leeds were to earn promotion and switch back to a betting sponsor for the front of their shirts in 2024 or 2025 then they would face the same accusation. It would give this summer's decision less of a good look.

In the here and now, this feels like an important step, regardless of the discussions that led to it or the reasoning.

James Grimes, founder of The Big Step - a campaign dedicated to bringing an end to football's relationship with betting - called the proposed Premier League ban on gambling shirt sponsorship deals a 'huge step' because it was a tacit acceptance of the harm caused by such deals.

"No gambling ads are seen more than those on Premier League shirts, worn by billions around the world," he said at the time of the ban's announcement.

Matt Gaskell, consultant psychologist at the Northern Gambling Service, which has a Leeds clinic, told city councillors earlier this year that over 50 per cent of patients were between 20 and 39 years old. Around 70 per cent are male.

“The most common types of gambling activities they’re engaging in are gambling machines, or slot machines to you and I; sports betting, particularly in-play betting which is a continuous form of gambling, and scratchcards," he said.

"It’s these continuous forms of gambling which are known to be the number one predictor of gambling harms."

Liz and Charles Ritchie both recently received MBEs for their work setting up the charity Gambling with Lives in 2018, a year after losing their son Jack. The 24-year-old from Sheffield took his own life after becoming addicted to gambling.

The couple campaign to highlight the link between gambling disorder, suicide and addictive betting products and what they call the industry's 'predatory practices.'

A statement on their website reads: "All too often, football is the ‘hook’ that draws first-time gamblers in, many of whom are then cross-sold highly dangerous – and addictive – products, such as online casino games."

According to the charity, although removing gambling logos from football shirts is not enough, it is what they would deem a 'big step.'

That's what Leeds have taken.