After its failed Wembley sale gamble, FA looks for a big win with betting levy proposal

October 30 – With Fulham owner Shahid Khan having withdrawn his £600 million offer to buy Wembley Stadium, the FA is fast looking for revenue streams to fund development of grassroots football in England and looks set to turn back to the betting industry as a source for that income.

FA chief executive Martin Glenn (pictured) has said the FA could seek to implement a levy on betting operators. “France has effectively a tax on gambling. We would call it a fair return on football gambling,” said Glenn.

“All those betting companies use our intellectual property to have people lay bets, so why wouldn’t a small percentage of that be put into the thing that made that possible in the first place?”

His proposals met with an immediate rebuttal from the gambling business with Gillian Wilmot, chair of the Senet Group, issuing a statement saying: “Gambling companies already pay significantly above the market rate for the right to advertise alongside live sport.

“This is money which flows to broadcasters and ultimately benefits sport through the sale of broadcast rights. Instead of looking to further monetise gambling’s relationship with live sport, the FA, clubs and broadcasters should be looking to work with the gambling industry to reduce the amount of gambling advertising around football. This is in the interests of protecting young people from any potential future harm.”

The Remote Gambling Association pointed out that the British betting industry already pays for the use of football’s intellectual property rights  through contractual arrangements with Football Data Co.

“Alongside that, significant funds flow from the betting to the football industries through a range of commercial partnerships such as sponsorship, advertising and joint ventures.

“If the football authorities wish to use some of those funds to support grassroots football then that is an option they might consider, but there is no basis whatsoever for the introduction of a statutory betting levy to support what most people would consider to be an extremely wealthy sport.”

Glenn was adamant though.“We, as football, could approach the government and say ‘Have you thought about something like that?’,” he said

“It doesn’t need to be a big lump sum. We’ve got £64 millon going into the Football Foundation between the three of us (FA, Premier League and government) – imagine if it was £80 million or £100 million. If we could get to that it would be brilliant.”

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