sport news Peter Shilton supports the decision to stop gambling sponsorship on football ...

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Peter Shilton has welcomed plans to stop gambling sponsorship on football shirts and has rubbished the argument that clubs need money from betting firms to survive.

Sportsmail revealed on Wednesday that the Government is set to propose a ban on gambling companies from being front-of-shirt sponsors when it publishes its white paper following its review of the Gambling Act.

Shilton, England’s most-capped men’s footballer, struggled with a gambling addiction for 45 years, leading him to launch his Shilton’s Soccer Shirt Gambling Ban campaign with wife Steph earlier this year.

The former goalkeeper took his campaign to Downing Street last week, where he delivered a petition signed by 12,000 and a person letter to Boris Johnson, in which he wrote that ‘banning gambling advertising on football shirts should be a priority for our Government’.

Responding to Sportsmail’s story, Shilton said: ‘This is encouraging news, which Steph and myself are very pleased about. It would be a great step.

‘Football shirt advertising is a back door way of making betting glamorous to children. Youngsters see pictures of their heroes with a betting company’s name across the shirt and it normalises it.

‘The numbers of kids getting involved in gambling and the number of addicted gamblers are going up all the time. Football needs to clean up its act.

‘Hoardings as well as shirts need to be looked at because it is all interlinked. Shirts would be a good start but it is still not enough.’

Nine of the 20 Premier League clubs have gambling companies as their front-of-shirt sponsors this season. Analysis by data and analytics company, GlobalData, estimates top-flight clubs stand to lose £60million a year from the ban.

‘Mid to lower Premier League clubs have become increasingly reliant on the industry to help limit the financial disparity

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