AMSTERDAM - Many Dutch professional football clubs are set to take a significant financial hit this year due to the ban on gambling commercials and sponsorships which will come into effect from July 1. According to the AD, 33 out of the 34 professional clubs in the country used gambling sponsorships in the last four years.
Bas Raemakers of Eredivisie CV, the organization that represents the interests of the clubs at the highest level in the Netherlands, has said that they have calculated that clubs will lose an average of 40 million euros directly due to the sponsorships being dropped and 30 million euros in indirect damage due to the loss of advertising from media partners.
Gambling sponsorships have been legal since 2021 and were often used by clubs during the Coronavirus pandemic to help stay afloat as football had been suspended. The only club to not agree to any gambling sponsorships was Roda JC, who rejected the idea on moral grounds.
The lower house of the Dutch Parliament, the Tweede Kamer, made the decision to ban gambling sponsorships in football three months after the market opened. It was decided that no new deals were allowed to be made from July 2023, and all the gambling sponsorships had to be out of football by July 2025.
The decision to ban gambling sponsorships was made after a significant rise in gambling could be seen throughout the Netherlands. The average money spent on gambling per month almost doubled in the country in 2023 compared to 2021, according to the Dutch regulator of gambling, the Kansspelautoriteit. Almost 500,000 people gamble every month, losing an average of 1,000 euros every six months.
Gambling addictions are also on the rise. Stichting Informatievoorziening Zorg (IVZ), the Healthcare Information Provision Foundation in English, reported that there was an increase of over 24 percent in gambling addictions in 2023 compared to the previous year. Many cite the opening of the gambling market in 2021 as an important factor in this.
"Everyone was warned that things would go wrong with the number of advertisements," said SP parliamentarian Michiel van Nispen, who was one of the initiators of the ban. "This is purely about making money. And the warnings were simply not listened to. I understand that you want to keep the income away from crime. But you have to be very careful with that. And now it immediately got out of hand."
Professional football clubs in the Netherlands have been angered by the fact that gambling sponsorships have been banned instantly without an alternative plan being sought.
Immediately after it was announced that the online gambling market was legalized, we sat down with the entire sector to make a plan to regulate this ourselves," explained Bas Raemakers of the Eredivisie CV. "We wanted players and managers not to participate in commercials. In addition, we wanted intensive information for players about match-fixing and for supporters about gambling addiction. And finally, we wanted far-reaching restrictions in our sponsorship propositions.”
Football economist and researcher Thomas Peeters understands the concerns of the clubs and added that it will mainly be the smaller-sized clubs who will be hit by this. “If you look at the distribution of income in the Netherlands, Ajax, PSV, Feyenoord, and perhaps AZ get a relatively large amount of the TV rights. That pie is divided less fairly than in other competitions: namely on the basis of performance.”
He added that it was mainly clubs in the second division, the Keuken Kampioen Divisie, who were benefiting from these sponsorships. “This will only lead to an increase in the financial dominance of the big three clubs.”
