Brett Ellis argues Premier League clubs should take note of Plymouth Argyle's invovmenent with Ginsters. Image: PA
Big league football has lost its soul. Some would argue it has been soulless since the advent of the Premier League and I, for one, would find it hard to disagree.
The first exhibit your honour is the rampant virtue signalling: Now fans don’t, if my Poundshop research is anything to go by, enjoy the moral righteousness of taking the knee. It commenced after the birth of BLM in the wake of the George Floyd death in the States and then, when it was proved a meaningless gesture which had nothing to do with the UK Premier League, they ditched it.
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Not to be outdone, and indignant that their actions couldn’t be wrong, they have brought it back this season, albeit rebadged as ‘take the knee to fight discrimination’. It’s a nonsensical tokenistic gesture that tackles real discrimination as effectively as a bucket of water in tackling a bush fire.
But the self-righteous moral crusade doesn’t stop there: Ivan Toney, the former Brentford and England striker, now cashing in his chips in some far-flung land, was banned from top league football (on full pay, I hasten to add) for eight months and Newcastle’s Sandro Tonali was banned for 10 months for betting breaches.
As far as I can see, the bets made, by rich young men with money and time to burn did not relate to any games they were actively involved in, yet the punishments were akin to zapping a fly with a flame thrower.
But the Premier League again takes the moral high ground, as it has with betting. They have ‘asked’ teams to withdraw from using gambling companies as their main kit sponsors, which has been agreed for commencement at the start of the 202627 season, although a gentleman’s handshake is not legally binding and I’ll believe it when I see it.
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When the Premier League was formed in 1992, shirt sponsors were predominantly tech companies (8/20) along with alcoholic brands. A quarter of these sponsors have since gone kaput including Commodore and Mita copiers.
Fast forward to recent years and 11/20 teams’ main sponsors last season are gambling companies with only one club (Liverpool) now being based within 1,000 miles of their sponsor's head office.
The average Premier League distance between the club and their main sponsors is in excess of 4,400 miles which shows the global reach the game now has, and which leaves me wondering if, with the riches on offer, how the Premier League is realistically going to go full steam ahead with their self-imposed ban in 2026/27; my ‘bet’ is they won't.
With not one sponsor now selling physical wares, other curiosities come to muster: I look at the Arsenal kit and wonder how many people have seen the ‘Visit Rwanda’ messaging on the shirts and thought: ‘Sod Greece or Spain for a family getaway, let's get off to the Kigali now the genocide is finished’. It’s a curious marketing collaboration, and that’s the truth.
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And so, as we watch highly paid and finely tuned multi-millionaires fall over at the slightest whiff of a human being within a country mile, we continue to endure the knee, the ramming of messaging down the throats before, during and after the games by interest groups, many of whom are fighting a cause that doesn’t need fighting. Then we have the black armbands and weekly silences for individuals we have no clue as to who they are before they tell us gambling is bad, despite coining it in from the enemy on the sly.
Now as a footnote, surprisingly, I am going to mention the devil's tool of Cornish pasties, Ginsters. Yes, their product is as far from a proper pasty as a sock is from a spoon, but they sponsored, for many years, the Plymouth team, located in the vicinity, and forged a positive relationship with Project 35 to combat food poverty in the west country.
As a force for good, in football terms, their involvement was unrivalled and Premier League teams should take note: You are judged by what you do, not what you say, and meaningful actions such as those undertaken by Ginsters are worth their weight in gold and are remembered for many years.
That said, I still can’t bring myself to purchase their wares as, with the Premier League's lack of morality and double standards, it also leaves a nasty taste in the mouth…