Newcastle charged after U-18’s jerseys display betting advertisement

As you may already know, Newcastle’s kits are sponsored by FUN88, an online gaming company that offers sports betting, casinos, and other betting services. This, of course, is totally legal to have on the first team’s or U-23’s jerseys but not for the U-18s.

According to the FA’s kit and advertising regulations, any sort of advertising of betting or alcohol on jerseys of U-18 teams will be charged. The FA believes having such an advertisement on jerseys of players under 18 may be “detrimental to the welfare, health or general interest of young persons”. It is surprising to see this breach happen as this rule seems pretty easy to follow.

Now the FA was not specific to say which game/ how many games Newcastle’s U-18s had been repping the FUN88 logo on their jerseys, but as you can see in the picture above from July 26th, 2017, it is a pretty delayed reaction. I wonder what prompted them to hand the charge now. Last match for the squad they did not have such logo on their kits.

Newcastle have a week to respond to this charge so we will know more within a few days.