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It took a long time, but the Premier League finally woke up to the dangers (not to mention the double standards and slippery slopes) of allowing teams to establish partnerships with various gambling companies, with the league just recently (in April!) agreeing to ban such sponsorships by the end of the 2025-26 season (and already having such bans in place for youth teams and academies).

So then in a shocking bit of news, Chelsea are reportedly in final talks with an online casino, called Stake, to become our new shirt sponsors for next season. According to the Telegraph, we’re looking at a one-year deal of around £40m, with an option for one or two more (the ban only starts in 2026, lads!).

That would match the size of our outgoing deal with mobile carrier Three, and as per the report, would be seen “within the industry” as a “pragmatic” move on our part seeing as how we don’t have the allure of European football to offer potential advertisers.

I’m assuming pragmatic is just another word for soulless — not that I’m under any illusion that the club is anything more than a business at the end of the day, even if we have pretended in the not so recent past that it can be about more than just that, too.

Chelsea had been in talks with Allianz about a deal as well, but it sounds like they only offered £20m. How very unpragmatic. And we were apparently also in talks with a crypto firm, which, surprise-surprise, “fell through”, and which really should just mean that every final decision-maker in that department needs to be fired (or did that already happen?).

Anyway, if you thought the Three logo was ghastly, you now get to go another twelve months or so without wasting money on a Chelsea (adult-size) shirt.