Football Shirt legals (Europe)

[Richas]

http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2104270,00.html

[ QUOTE ]
European football shirt sponsorship has emerged as the bizarre battleground for an increasingly bitter fight between offshore internet gambling groups and a handful of continental regulators, determined to outlaw unlicensed online betting on their turf.

[/ QUOTE ]

I thought the whole article was interesting especially what they paid for Real Madrid's shirt sponsorship and that over 20% of UK Premiership shirts are now online gambling.

[TheEngineer]

http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2104270,00.html

[JavaNut]

I think that a cucling team has been left out of an event due to their sponsor being a betting site.

In several countries advertising for internet gambling sites is illegal. But it is not necesarily illegal for people to play at those sites or for banks etc. to handle transactions to those sites.

The EU are currently handling a few cases where sites have sued claiming that these advertising bans are illegal according to EU law. Nothing really fundamental has come out of this yet.

[Richas]

French cycling - same issues...

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,2104554,00.html

http://tinyurl.com/326pzs

[ QUOTE ]
A leading cycle team sponsored by online gambling firm Unibet has been excluded from the Tour de France because French law forbids advertising by foreign gaming companies.

....
It believes its ejection is unjust, particularly as the French horse racing monopoly Pari Mutuel Urbain is the Tour's main sponsor. And the national lottery operator La Francaise des Jeux sponsors a rival team.

[/ QUOTE ]

[Richas]

http://tinyurl.com/3cgt4z
http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=51328

[ QUOTE ]
EU executive warns countries over Unibet.com team ban

The European Commission has issued warnings to Belgium, France and Italy over action against the Unibet cycling team because of its connections to betting, according to a spokesman and others......

EU Internal Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy had earlier warned France over the same issue, and a Commission official told Reuters that Brussels would step up legal action against the French government in June over its enforcement of anti-betting laws governing cycling and all other sports.




[/ QUOTE ]

[JavaNut]

As I understand EU legislation this will be considered a 'technical trade restriction' which is something the EU takes very seriously, it is considered as a very severe offence. I think that the ban of advertising online site legal in other EU countries will be considered highly illegal by the EU. Of course time will show what happens.