English Premier League football club Aston Villa has inked not one but two betting partnerships with UK online gambling firms Betfair and Bet365.
In a somewhat unorthodox move, Tuesday saw Aston Villa FC announce that it had signed both Betfair and Bet365 as its new official betting partners commencing July 1 and lasting through the upcoming EPL season. The club says each company will enjoy “co-exclusive rights” in the betting category, which puzzles those of us Highlander fans who grew up convinced that there can be only one.
Aston Villa’s official presser on the new polygamist partnership says both Betfair and Bet365 will “have the right to be associated with Aston Villa and activate the partnerships globally and both will appear on the club’s LED screens and interview backdrops.” Would love to have been in the negotiating session as the specific dimensions and positioning of each company’s logo were determined.
Aston Villa’s chief commercial officer Charlie Wijeratna said he was “very pleased that we have got two top betting brands on board as partners for next season.” Wijeratna said the club had two commercial aims: partnering with “good brands that will activate extensively” and – surprise – making scads of cash they can then spend on players with nimble feet and outsized egos.
As for why the threesome wasn’t open to a foursome with Aston Villa’s former UK and Ireland betting partner William Hill, Wijeratna played coy, saying only that the Betfair and Bet365 deals represented “a very significant commercial increase on last year’s betting partnership.”
Earlier this month, Aston Villa announced a two-year shirt sponsorship with US accounting software firm Intuit Quickbooks, which replaced Asian-facing online gambling operator Dafabet, whose logo adorned Aston Villa’s jerseys for the past two seasons.
