We here in the UK and many other climes live in an age of austerity. This is coded language for lots of people are financially on the floor. Newcastle United are on the brink of a deal that may redefine Premier League sponsorship.
There’s little point in wading through the murky and pointless discussion of how we got here in the first place. Let Mr Bridger from The Italian Job guide you when it comes to politicians. ‘Camp Freddie, everybody in the World is bent!’
We’re here now and whatever way society is squeezed you can guarantee that there will always be those in a position to help. Short term loan companies are like erections at a Viagra trial. Not much emotion, lots of interest.
Wonga.com appear to have taken the bait that Newcastle owner Mike Ashley placed when he re-branded Sid James Park, The Sports Direct Arena. But the initial responses don’t seem favourable. Ian Lavery, the Labour MP for Wansbeck who is a season ticket holder at Sid James Park :
“Financial predators who make their money from people suffering from unemployment, low wages and in the greatest financial need. Newcastle United will be sponsored by the money of deprived people up and down the country,”
“If Wonga get this sponsorship through I will not set foot in St James’ Park until it is off the shirts. To have those players running around on that turf endorsing Wonga is an absolute outrage.
“I have more and more people coming to see me and saying that as a result of job losses or benefit cuts they are being forced into these terrible but legal money lenders whose interest rates only then trap them into further debt.”
Michael Martin, editor of the fanzine True Faith said:
“The people who run Newcastle, for the fans, have a social responsibility. I would love them to honestly answer one question: Would you, Mike Ashley, seriously recommend borrowing money from Wonga at those interest rates?
“If you can’t answer yes then they shouldn’t be our shirt sponsors. Newcastle is being used to normalise their product. It cheapens and tarnishes the Newcastle United brand. I wouldn’t want my logo next to them, so what do other sponsors think?”
Wonga.com sponsors Blackpool and Heart of Midlothian football teams and advertises on football clubs’ websites, leading one Northampton Town fan to start a campaign for its ads to be removed.
Who called this type of lending legal loan sharking? Not me guv, but Walthamstow MP Stella Creasy who was specifically talking about ‘Money Shop’ when workers at The Money Shop were invited into classrooms at Holy Family Technology College in Walthamstow as part of a scheme organised by the Young Enterprise charity:
“I know many parents in Walthamstow who share my concerns about legal loan sharking will be shocked to find a charity such as young enterprise letting these companies into our schools and so helping them to promote themselves as socially responsible.
“Until this industry is regulated properly through caps on the costs of credit they have no place in our education system – and I hope young enterprise will think again before allowing their good work to be associated with such firms.”
This is relevant to us because we’ll be in a similar boat sooner rather than later. And I’d appreciate your thoughts – I may be wrong, but I’d suggest to you that ‘White Hart Lane’ as an official trading name, is one living on borrowed time.
Would you be happy with a significant sponsor of Tottenham Hotspur who lent money with representative APR of 4241%?
Where do we draw the line. I wasn’t comfortable with Spurs shirts adorned with gambling logos like Mansion. But I was made to see the error of my ways by a free marketeer who warned me “If not that, then where are we going to get our money from”? That put me in my place. I guess it will be ok then to have firms like BAE, who sell weapons to dictators like Mugabe have their logo on our shirts. Why stop there? How about Nuclear weapons manufacturers. We could have an emblem of a nuke on our shirts. If we were a Colombian team how about your local drug cartel being represented? Fortunately I have no income and am not in a position to borrow money. My wife gives me a tenner and says “make it last all week”.
Everton have already got the Cartel thing sewn up… Always makes me laugh seeing CHANG on the front of a shirt.
did i miss something? chang is not a relatively stock standard beer company, but rather is secretly a colombian drug cartel? who knew?
Crikey! When we had Holsten Pils on our shirts, who were we linked to?
Chang has been hipster media slang for the old bolivian marching powder since way back when I was a wet behind the ears junior on shoots. Thankfully days long gone… still find it funny though.
Untrue. Benny hates dictators like Mugabe.
:lol:
Chang is Thai for elephant, could be a good thai-in deal there for Huddlestone if he gets fed up with being on the bench.
Tricky one, that. Mansion sponsored Spurs to the tune of £8.5 million a year, which far exceeded Thomson’s deal, which was worth £1.25 million a year.
As opportunist as it was, seeing as Spurs weren’t Mansion’s first choice originally, as the 7th largest shirt sponsorship deal in the world at the time it provided a valuable cash injection which saw us sign Dimitar Berbatov (and others). He was a welcome addition then as was the deal, and it is reasonable to assume we wouldn’t have signed him – and subsequent progress for our club may not have happened as quickly without it.
Naturally there are moral arguments/questions regarding Gambling companies, alcohol brands being allowed to sponsor clubs and so on. Susceptible people can develop problems with both. There is a majority who do not. But I recognise it gives it a veil of acceptance, in the same way as it did for tobacco companies who sponsored F1, snooker, darts and so on before they were considered unsuitable.
Now there’s the emergence of these legal loan sharks, who are allowed to advertise on TV, in Wonga’s case even using “cute old people puppetry”. How this can be considered an acceptable part of our make up these days, and they could be allowed to have their logos adorn club shirts is incredible – but sadly no less incredible than seeing all these companies advertise their “payday loans” on TV and so on.
Mansion needed a quick replacement for their original 1st Choice who I think were Man Utd, but may be wrong-and we needed a sponsor willing to pay more than Thompson had offered-job done-If we were that concerned about the perils of gambling-then why not 18-30 holidays- Which are far more dangerous in my opinion.
Their first choice was indeed Man Utd, and they were desperate to sponsor a Premiership team.
I went on an 18-30 holiday once. It involved being present and not listening to the rep on the first day, ignoring their activities and plans, and doing our own thing. Which pissed them off no end since they wouldn’t be getting any commissions from us. :-D
Have you seen our new Asian betting partner, Fun88? I’m not sure what the “Fun88 Angels” have to do with placing bets online though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaZ8M831w60
Seriously?,blow me-well, blow me again
I thnk DL is more of a ‘Dolce & Gabbana Stadium’ man.
Or how about ‘Aston Martin’? And you get a free car with every season ticket.
That is an utterly ridiculous suggestion.
I’m 6′ 4″ and a DB7 would make me look really cool. Until I tried to get into it.
if you’re 6’4″ why does the HHH illustration make you look 5’3″? :-p
I’m sitting down.
Strange how there wasn’t a complaint of this nature when they (Newcastle) bore Northern Rock on their shirts- you know the people who caused most of the financial problems by purchasing toxic loans and causing a run on the bank-ironically by the Geordie s themselves? Also perhaps Gov.com.uk would care to sponsor another team-well, they did indirectly do the same for Newcastle by propping up Northern Rock, before Virgin bought it
No one sticks their arms up their collective backs, if they don’t like the interest rates, don’t use it. Simples. If you don’t want to be in debt don’t use credit and don’t take out loans, no one forces them to. The quicker a few people woke up and start living within their means the better off they’ll be.
Dumb, totally pointless this thread who gives a toss about a bunch work dodging geordies?
You useless, blinkered waste of flesh.
Go order a pint in the Coach & Horses and stay the living hell away from me you stroke cheat.
I saw the geezer that has chick king on the high street….he’s a fucking multi….he had a bag of cash that would put any one to shame…I’d love to see chick king plastered allows over the gaff at the new stadium…the chicken king arena….oh my days!!!!!