Football fans have to wear shirts that bear the logo of the sponsor, whether they agree to this principle or not. Many feel that this is an unfair practice given that teams are offered children’s shirts without a logo. A good case study is where the sponsor may be a gambling company.
The absence of the logo may seem to be ethical but it is most probably a means of avoiding hefty fines imposed on company’s that break advertising guidelines. Looking for a sponsor at the start of the season is akin to the frenzied activity that goes on before the transfer period is over. The FA was put in a quandary when, in 1976, the late Derek Dougan secured sponsorship from a company named Kettering Tyres.
The FA put Derek to task over the logo on the shirts, and he, in turn, shrewdly changed the lettering to Kettering “T”; the T standing for both “Tyres”, and “Town”. The following year, the FA had to relax the rules about the logos that go on the T-shirts.
Another Interesting scenario is that surrounding Barcelona’s sponsorship. For 111 years, this team refused all forms of sponsorship logos on their shirts, and only toted the UNICEF logo. In the year 2010, this trend changed and the UNICEF logo was relegated to the back of the shirts, and the logo for the Qatar Foundation was placed on the front. This caused a furour as people took issue with the human rights violations that are experienced in Qatar.
Another team, Sunderland, seemed to embrace positive sponsorship practices when it put the logo “Invest in Africa” on the front of their shirts. This was before it was discovered that the company behind the logo was an oil and gas exploration multinational corporation.
Supporters should be more informed about the ethics behind the logos on the kits that they blindly buy. The office of Fair Trading Investigations is looking at the matter at present.