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English Premier League clubs have agreed to remove gambling sponsorship from their matchday shirts by the end of the 2025/26 football season.

Notwithstanding this, clubs can continue to display gambling branding on shirt sleeves and LED advertising after the deadline.

Before the deadline, clubs can also sign new shirt-front deals.

The gambling businesses on the front of the shirts of eight Premier League clubs are estimated to be worth £60 million per year.

The announcement follows a consultation with the league, clubs, and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport as part of the government’s ongoing assessment of current gambling legislation.

The Premier League will become the first sports league in the United Kingdom to use such a strategy to curb gambling advertising voluntarily.

The league also collaborates with other sports to create a new code for responsible gambling sponsorship.

The government was not expected to recommend a ban on gambling sponsorship, with the Premier League expected to agree to a move voluntarily.

Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson mostly agreed on reforms to the Gambling Act 2005 before stepping down in July, causing a delay in the publication of a gambling white paper.

The Secretary of State for Culture, Media, and Sport, said on Thursday that she “welcomed the Premier League’s decision.”

“The vast majority of adults gamble responsibly,” she noted, “but we must recognize that players are role models who have a massive influence on young people.”

What is the context?

Last May, a DCMS spokesperson told BBC Sport that the department is conducting “the most complete review of gambling rules in 15 years to see that they are fit for the digital age.”

Proponents of a broader prohibition argue that gambling sponsorship in football has normalized the industry and that greater regulation is required to safeguard minors and other vulnerable populations.

According to the Betting and Gaming Council, representing the industry, the “vast majority” of the 22.5 million individuals who bet in the UK monthly do so “safely and responsibly.”

According to the report, “the rate of gambling problem remains low by international standards, at 0.3% of the UK’s adult population – reducing from 0.4% the previous year.”

On the other hand, a YouGov study for GambleAware in 2021 estimated the figure at 2.8%.

Iain Duncan Smith, a former Conservative leader, is a member of the APPG (All Party Parliamentary Group) on Gambling-Related Harm, which has been urging the government for tighter protections.

After the club was rumored to have secured an agreement with Asia-based betting firm BK8, Aston Villa’s fan consultation committee met with chief executive Christian Purslow in January. It afterward published a statement adding, “The commercial fact is that such sponsors provide clubs twice as much financially as non-gambling corporations to teams below the top six.”

“A self-regulatory model would give a feasible and flexible alternative to regulation or outright prohibition,” the Premier League earlier stated.

To help teams transition away from shirt-front gambling sponsorship, a collective agreement was made to begin the prohibition after 2025-26.

The English Football League (EFL), which Sky Bet sponsors, previously stated that a total ban on gambling sponsorship for its 72 members would cost clubs £40 million per year.

Given the large amount of money it makes from the game, the EFL’s view on the gambling sector has long been that it should contribute to the financial viability of professional football.

Chairman Rick Parry has already stated that the EFL believes that an evidence-based approach to preventing injury is far superior to a blanket ban.

The Premier League takes a significant step forward

Everton announced last summer that they had agreed to a club-record multi-year relationship with casino and sports betting platform Stake.com.

Following Thursday’s announcement of the league’s agreement, Everton manager Sean Dyche stated, “I am not going to get too engaged in the discussions of judgment about it, but they have made a collective decision, and all parties have unanimously agreed with it.”

According to The Big Step, a campaign to eradicate gambling advertising and sponsorship in football, nearly 30 clubs in the Premier League and Championship had a gambling corporation on the front of their shirt just over three years ago.

Katie Razzall, cultural and media editor at BBC News

Some campaigners believe that the news of this voluntary ban needs to go further. They highlight the Premier League’s influence on children and young people, arguing that gambling sponsorship of football is an important part of normalizing the sector (as they see it).

Read Also: UK economy: IMF predicts poor performance  

Gambling firm names will continue to appear on banner advertising throughout the grounds and on the sleeves of adult clothing even after 2026.

Many people advocated for a complete ban on this type of sponsorship and advertising in sports. However, that had never seemed likely.

All eyes are on Lucy Frazer, the new Culture Secretary, who is picking up where three predecessors left off, changing gambling regulations to make them fit for internet gaming.

There has been tremendous lobbying of MPs by both the industry and those fighting for reform – and that lobbying has reached a climax in recent weeks as final choices on what that would mean in practice are made.

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Jude Bellingham has quickly become an important player for Borussia Dortmund and England in the past few years. Some of the biggest teams in football also want him.

The midfielder is worth £110 million, and it is said that many of Europe’s best clubs are ready to fight for him. This will make the player’s summer a lot of fun.

At last year’s World Cup, Bellingham, who is only 19, was one of England’s best players. As he gets ready to wear the Three Lions shirt again, BBC Sport tells the story of how he went from being a shy kid at Birmingham to one of the most sought-after players in the world.

When Bellingham left Birmingham for Borussia Dortmund in 2020 for £25 million, he became the most expensive 17-year-old football player in history. Some people were upset that Bellingham’s shirt number was retired by the Championship team, even though he had only played one full season of professional football.

But the fact that he is now showing everyone how good and humble he is shows why the Blues liked him so much.

He had no interest in football.

He was so good at football that it seemed like that was all he would ever do.

When he was younger, Bellingham didn’t care much about sports.

Phil Wooldridge, who was his first coach, said he met Bellingham when he was four years old.

But once Bellingham got it, there was no stopping him.

He told his teachers and classmates at school that he would one day play for England. As his interest in football grew, Wooldridge and Bellingham’s father started a team called Stourbridge Juniors, on which he played often.

Teams from professional sports teams in the area noticed him there. Then, when he was seven, he joined Birmingham City and worked with a coach who, according to Bellingham, helped him become the person and player he is today.

Mike Dodds, who is now the first-team coach at Sunderland, was a big part of Bellingham’s development and helped him get his first job when he was only 16.

How much of a big deal is Jude Bellingham?

Millions of people who watched the World Cup last year saw how caring he was when, after Harry Kane missed England’s second penalty against France that would have tied the score, Bellingham was the first player to comfort the striker.

Bellingham only played for Birmingham for one season, but he was a big reason why they didn’t fall to League One. Many of the best clubs in the world wanted to sign him because he was talented and had grown up on the field by the time he was 17. But Borussia Dortmund got him before the other teams.

Bellingham had a bigger stage with the Bundesliga giants, but that didn’t stop him from doing well. He made history when he became Dortmund’s captain at 19 in October of last year.

This season, Bellingham has added another thing: goals. He didn’t score more than six goals in his first two seasons at Dortmund, but he already has ten this season. In September, he scored against Manchester City in the Champions League.

Bellingham also scored against Pep Guardiola’s team in the quarterfinals of the same competition two years earlier. Owen Hargreaves, who used to play for Manchester United and now works as a TV commentator, said that even though Dortmund lost the game, Bellingham was the best player on the field.

If anyone didn’t know how talented Bellingham was before his first World Cup, they did after his teammates couldn’t say anything bad about him.

Phil Foden, a midfielder for England, Manchester City, and Senegal, said of Bellingham, “I don’t want to talk too much about him because he’s still young, but he’s one of the most talented players I’ve ever seen.” This was after Bellingham had another great game in a 3-0 win over Senegal in the last 16 rounds.

This summer, Bellingham has been linked to some of the best clubs in Europe, so only a few people would disagree with Foden.

Jude Bellingham is one of the most exciting young football players to watch right now because of how well he “runs” the midfield. Add that to the fact that he played well for Borussia Dortmund in the German Bundesliga and continental European football and was one of the best at his position at the Qatar World Cup 2022.

Real Madrid confident of completing Bellingham’s deal

Real Madrid is sure they will sign Jude Bellingham this summer because they think they have the upper hand over rivals Manchester City and Liverpool.

Marca says that the final price for the talented 19-year-old Jude Bellingham will be around €150m, made up of €115m in a fixed fee and up to €35m in variables.

They know that Liverpool and City will offer more money for Jude Bellingham to both Dortmund and the player, but they think they have a significant advantage because Bellingham wants to play for Dortmund.

Read Also: Sheikh Jassim submits new Manchester United bid

After Head of Recruitment Juni Calafat met with Bellingham’s father, it’s clear that Los Blancos think they’ve shown him that the Santiago Bernabeu is the place to be. His salary would be around €10 million, much less than €15 million. Borussia Dortmund was willing to pay him to stay, as were City and Liverpool, but Real Madrid will not break their salary structure for him.

Real Madrid knows they will lose out on Jude Bellingham if money and commissions are the deciding factors, but they seem to be confident that won’t happen.

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Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who owns Ineos, and Sheikh Jassim, a banker from Qatar, will make better offers to buy Manchester United before Wednesday at 21:00 GMT.

This month, United officials met with the only two known bidders.

People say that when they went to Old Trafford and Manchester United’s training ground, they talked with interesting people.

Ineos wants to buy all of the Glazer shares, which are worth about 69% of the club. The Qataris, on the other hand, want to buy the entire club.

BBC Sport discovered that United officials met with representatives from Ratcliffe, Sheikh Jassim, and seven other possible investors over ten days.

Their first bids have not been made public yet, but reports say they are around £4.5 billion. This is a long way below what the club’s American owners, the Glazers, have set as a value of $5 billion to $6 billion.

The next big question is if they or any other possible bidders can make an offer that makes the Glazers want to sell.

If not, and since United’s luck has improved a lot under manager Erik ten Hag in the last few months, the Americans might still decide to keep the club and instead try to sell a minority stake to a US hedge fund like Elliott Investment Management.

In November, the Glazer family said that they might sell United.

In its first bid, Sheikh Jassim’s Qatari group said, “We plan to return the club to its former glory.”

Sheikh Jassim is the head of the Qatari bank QIB and the son of a former Qatari prime minister. He has always liked the team Manchester United.

Ratcliffe, a 70-year-old British billionaire, owns the Ineos group. He has always spent money on sports and now owns the French Ligue 1 team Nice and the Swiss team Lausanne.

It also gives money to the famous sailing team Ineos Britannia, led by Sir Ben Ainslie. It also has a five-year deal with the Formula One team Mercedes and took over the British cycling team Team Sky in 2019.

At the time of the first bid, people thought the proposal would emphasize that Ratcliffe, born in Manchester, would be “a British guardian for the club” and try to “put the Manchester back into Manchester United.”

Who else is running?

At least two offers will be made for United by the US, and Saudi Arabia has shown interest.

This means that up to five people could be trying to negotiate a full sale, while others could be looking to make a smaller investment in exchange for a smaller share of the 20-time English league champions.

Even though he might not have a direct role in the club, Nasser al-Khelaifi, the president of Paris St. Germain, is likely to be a key figure in any bid by Qatar to buy the club.

Al-Khelaifi was thinking about having his company, Qatar Sports Investment, buy a smaller piece of a Premier League club (QSI).

But Uefa rules say that one person can’t own more than one club, so Qatar would have to work with private people or another group to buy all of United.

Human rights and LGBTQ+ groups are worried that Qatar might buy a Premier League team and then own two of the best teams in Europe.

Manchester United could possibly be sold

People in the Gulf state look confused when they hear that Qatar might buy Manchester United and that Qatar already owns Paris Saint-Germain, which could cause a conflict of interest.

They think that two or more groups own about half of the Premier League clubs.

One example is that Manchester City is a part of the City Football Group. Daniel Kretinsky is the president of Sparta Prague, and he also owns a piece of West Ham. Both teams played in the Europa League last year.

They also know that Ratcliffe wants to buy United and that there is no sign that he will give up control of French club Nice, only four points away from a spot in Europe.

Also, Uefa has given both RB Leipzig and RB Salzburg permission to play in the same European tournaments.

Read Also: Manchester United receives a bid from Ineos

Since Nasser al-Khelaifi is the chairman of both PSG and the European Clubs’ Association, which has been working more closely with Uefa, it is safe to assume that any problems have been fixed.

But people who know about this offer say it has nothing to do with who owns PSG. Also, the bid is just a thought. Also, sources say that United’s “data room” information isn’t very good.

All information about the Old Trafford club’s finances must be made public.

People think this is just the beginning of the process, but Sheikh Jassim is serious about taking the club away from the Glazer family for the first time since 2005. He also wants to spend money on the whole Trafford area.

Pele, a Brazilian football legend who may have been the best player ever, died at age 82. He set a world record by scoring 1,281 goals in 1,363 games over the course of his 21-year career. In 92 games for his country, he scored 77 goals. Only Pele has won the World Cup more than once. He did it in 1958, 1962, and 1970. Also, in 2000, Fifa named him the Player of the Century. His kidneys and prostate have given him trouble in the past few years. In September 2021, a tumor was removed from Pele’s colon during surgery at the Albert Einstein Hospital in Sao Paulo. When tests were done, as usual, the tumor was found. So he went back to the hospital at the end of November 2022. His daughter Kely Nascimento kept people up to date on social media about how her father was doing while he was in the hospital. On Thursday, she posted a photo of what looked like Pele’s family holding his body in the hospital and wrote: “You’re what makes us who we are. We love you forever and ever. Rest in peace.” Edson Arantes do Nascimento, known as Pele, became a worldwide star when, at age 17, he helped Brazil win the 1958 World Cup in Sweden. By the time it was time for the knockout rounds, he had fought his way into the starting lineup. He scored the sole goal in a 1-0 win over Wales in the quarterfinals. In the semi-finals, he scored three goals against France. In the final, he scored two goals in a 5-2 win over the hosts. When Pele was 15, he played his first game for Santos, a club team, and scored in a 7-1 win over Corinthians de Santo Andre. It was the first of 643 goals he would score for the club in official matches over the next 19 years, although Santos says the total is more than 1,000. Once exhibition games are taken into account, which is often against well-known European teams. Brazil beat Mexico 2-0 to start the 1962 World Cup. Pele, who was 21 at the time, scored a great goal. But he got hurt in the next game and had to watch his team defend their title from the sidelines. The most well-known of his three World Cup wins was the last one. After getting kicked out of the tournament in England in 1966 because of a foul, he led a team that won the title in 1970 by attacking quickly. In the final game, which England won 4-1 over Italy, he scored the first goal. From crying with joy on the chest of his teammate, Nilton Santos, to hugging England’s captain Bobby Moore, Pele’s magical moments have lasted for decades and changed the history of the sport. He finished his club career with the New York Cosmos, where he played with legends like Franz Beckenbauer and Carlos Alberto, who both won the World Cup in 1970. “Beethoven is different from everyone else. Pele and everyone else played football “in 2000. In a poll by BBC Sport in 2020, Pele was chosen as the best Player over Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Diego Maradona, and Johan Cruyff.

Pele was a world cup hero

The image of shirtless Pele being carried high by teammates and fans after Brazil won the World Cup in Mexico City in 1970 is burned into my mind. So is that famous picture of another shirtless hug with England captain Bobby Moore (above), a sign of mutual respect after Brazil beat England 1-0 in a group game in Guadalajara. His greatness can be seen in how gracefully and beautifully he played football, even when he missed the goal. Pele was one of the first soccer players to become famous worldwide. He was a great player from when he was a teenager with Santos to when he made money for the New York Cosmos. Pele’s name will always be connected, no matter where football is played. When he was 15, Pele joined the small coastal team Santos and made it one of the most famous in football. During his 18 years at the club, he won every Brazilian football title, including two Copa Libertadores, the South American version of the Champions League, and two Intercontinental Cups, an annual tournament between the best teams in Europe and South America. The Fifa website says that Pele scored 1,281 goals in 1,366 games, which is a shocking average of 0.94 goals per game. Some were friendly games or games he played as part of his military service, but he was just as good in official tournaments, scoring 757 goals in 812 games. Read Also: Sunday Ticket: Youtube signs deal with NFL Before players could play anywhere in the world, Pele was at his best, so the best years of his club career were spent in Brazil. So it’s hard to imagine how much he would have been worth on the transfer market now. Pele was a natural choice when the North America Soccer League was made to get more Americans interested in soccer. Even though the great German Franz Beckenbauer was a big deal, Pele’s move to finish his career with the New York Cosmos in 1975 gave him more status and glamour.

Image Source: Mirror

Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani, who runs one of Qatar’s biggest banks, said his foundation would try to buy Manchester United.

BBC Sport says that Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s company, Ineos, also made an official bid before Friday’s “soft deadline” at 22:00 GMT.

A billionaire named Ratcliffe had already said he wanted to buy United.

The Glazer family bought United in 2005, and now they are “exploring strategic alternatives,” which means they are thinking about selling.

Sheikh Jassim, who is in charge of the Qatari group, said, “The bid wants to return the club to its former glory.”

Sheikh Jassim’s Nine Two Foundation will pay all of the bid’s debts. In addition, the foundation will put money into the football teams, the training center, the stadium and other infrastructure, the fan experience, and the communities that the club helps. The bid says that its goal is for Manchester United to be known as the best soccer team in the world.

Ineos hasn’t said anything yet, but it’s thought that the proposal will stress that Ratcliffe, born in Manchester, would be “a British guardian for the club” and try to “put the Manchester back into Manchester United.”

The 70-year-old British billionaire Ratcliffe owns the Ineos group. He has always put money into sports, and now he owns the French Ligue 1 club Nice and the Swiss club Lausanne.

It also has a famous sailing team called Ineos Britannia. Sir Ben Ainslie is in charge of the team, which wants to win America’s Cup for Great Britain in 2024.

Ineos also has a five-year contract with the Formula 1 team Mercedes, and in 2019, it bought the British cycling team Team Sky.

Sheikh Jassim is the head of the Qatari bank QIB and the son of a former Qatari prime minister. He has always been a fan of Manchester United.

His group should have said how much money they were planning to pay for the club.

Saudi Arabia has shown interest, and the US will likely make at least two offers for the United.

This means that up to five parties could be trying to negotiate a full sale, while others could be looking to make a smaller investment in exchange for a smaller share of the 20-time English league champions.

Even though he might not have a direct role in the club, Nasser al-Khelaifi, president of Paris St. Germain, is likely to be a key figure in any bid by Qatar to buy the club.

The company Al-Khelaifi runs, Qatar Sports Investment (QSI), was thinking about buying a smaller share of a Premier League club.

But Uefa rules say that one person can’t own more than one club, so Qatar would have to work with private people or a different group to buy all of United.

Human rights and LGBTQ+ groups are worried that Qatar might buy a Premier League club and then own two of the biggest teams in Europe.

People in the Gulf state look confused when they talk about Qatar possibly buying Manchester United and a possible conflict of interest because Qatar already owns Paris Saint-Germain.

They think that about half of the Premier League clubs are owned by more than one group.

The fact that Manchester City is part of the City Football Group is one example. Daniel Kretinsky is Sparta Prague’s president and owns a part of West Ham. Last year, both teams were in the Europa League.

They also know that Ratcliffe wants to buy United and that there is no sign that he will give up control of French club Nice, which is only four points away from a spot in Europe.

Also, Uefa has already given RB Leipzig and RB Salzburg permission to play in the same European tournaments.

Since Nasser al-Khelaifi is the chairman of both PSG and the European Clubs’ Association, which has been working more closely with Uefa, it is safe to assume that any problems have been solved.

But sources say this offer has nothing to do with who owns PSG. It’s also clear that the bid is just an idea. Moreover, according to sources, the information in United’s “data room” has been disappointing.

Now, the Old Trafford club’s financial information must all be made public.

People think this is just the start of the process, but Sheikh Jassim is serious about taking the club away from the Glazer family for the first time since 2005. He also wants to put money into the Trafford area as a whole.

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He likes Manchester United and has been to a game or two. He could have bid on Chelsea, which sold for £4.25 billion last year, but he didn’t. He thinks that this is an opportunity he can’t miss.