With new online gambling restrictions on the legislative cards in Poland, big sponsorship dollars may soon be withdrawn from local football leagues.
Until now Poland has passively allowed mainstream advertising by online gambling operators in the absence of any restrictive laws on point. As a result, significant sponsorship dollars from some of Europe's larger brand operators have over the years made their way into Polish football.
The likes of Bwin, Bet-at-Home, Expekt and Unibet amongst others pay local leagues and clubs big money under current sponsorship deals and these will all have to be scrapped if the new laws are passed as proposed. Advertising restrictions will form a key component of the new laws, rendering such sponsorship deals, and mainstream advertising of gambling generally, illegal.
The value of funding pulled out of Polish sports, and in particular football, will be significant. Unibet's name sponsorship of Poland's 2nd level league, Unibet Liga, is believed to be worth EUR 4 million alone. Then there's Bwin's relationship with Legia Warszawa, BetAtHome and Betclick's shirt deals with Wisla Krakow and Lech Poznan respectively as well as Expekt’s support of the Polish National team. Apparently both Wisla Krakow and Lech Poznan have written to the government explaining that the bans would be financially damaging.
All told estimates of the dollars lost to Polish football should the advertising restrictions become law, range from 20 - 30 million Euro annually.
The Polish Government's sudden anti-gambling stance is being lead by Prime Minister Donald Tusk and follows a betting scandal in recent weeks that lead to the resignation of a number of key members of Tusk's government.
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