Seven ISL clubs linked to betting sponsors
Reporting indicates seven out of eleven ISL clubs have sponsors tied to betting companies, creating a reputational and governance tension as clubs balance commercial income with brand risk. The finding highlights the need for clubs to manage sponsor portfolios carefully, especially where athlete image and community sentiment are concerned. (indiatribune.com)
The story starts with an old number that still explains a very current problem. In December 2020, IANS reported that seven of the 11 Indian Super League clubs at the time had sponsors tied to betting companies, often through “news” brands that copied the look and name of their gambling parent companies rather than advertising the betting sites directly (indiatribune.com). That was not a one-off quirk from a messy season. It was an early look at a sponsorship model that has stayed alive by changing costumes, not by changing its business. The mechanism was simple and brazen. Clubs wore logos like DafaNews, Parimatch News, SBOTOP.net, and Indinews, while the underlying betting brands remained easy to spot through matching branding and direct links from the “news” sites to gambling platforms (indiatribune.com). The point was never journalism. The point was to keep betting brands on shirts, sleeves, and perimeter boards in a market where direct promotion was already under pressure. Once you see that, the rest of the story stops looking like a sponsorship trend and starts looking like a compliance workaround. Indian regulators saw the same pattern. In October 2022, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said offshore betting platforms were using news websites as surrogate products, noted that the logos of those sites bore a “striking resemblance” to the betting brands, and warned TV channels, digital publishers, and ad intermediaries not to carry such ads aimed at Indians (pib.gov.in). In April 2023, the ministry tightened that stance again, saying ads and surrogate ads for online betting platforms fell foul of multiple laws and should not be published or promoted in any form (ascionline.in). That should have closed the door. It did not. Instead, the market adapted. A 2024 report by Best Media Info described how offshore gambling platforms were using legal offshore subsidiaries and media-style fronts to sponsor teams in the ISL and Pro Kabaddi League, with Punjab FC’s DafaNews deal offered as a clear example (bestmediainfo.com). Punjab FC itself announced DafaNews as a principal sponsor for the 2024-25 ISL season, with the logo placed front and center on the match shirt (rgpunjabfc.com; sportskhabri.com). The old tactic had simply matured. It was now less about sneaking in and more about operating in public. The league level tells the same story. SportsKhabri’s 2024-25 sponsorship roundup says Parimatch Sports was an official ISL partner, replacing Parimatch News, which had previously held pitch-side and digital branding rights (sportskhabri.com). ET Brand Equity reported the same partnership in October 2024, framing Parimatch Sports as an on-ground partner for the league’s 11th season (brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com). So this is not just a few clubs making edgy commercial choices. The league’s own commercial surface has also been open to brands linked to betting. That matters because the ISL is no longer a tiny competition improvising its way through adolescence. The league’s official site now lists 13 clubs, up from the 11 in that 2020 report, which means the commercial footprint is larger and the reputational spillover is wider (indiansuperleague.com). More teams mean more shirts, more local fan bases, more youth audiences, and more chances for a surrogate brand to normalize itself as just another sports sponsor. What looked in 2020 like a strange loophole has become part of the furniture. Advertising watchdogs have been blunt about that drift. In February 2024, ASCI and India’s Department of Consumer Affairs said surrogate advertising remained a serious concern in restricted categories including gambling, and ASCI said it had reported 765 illegal betting ads to regulators over the previous three years, with most processed surrogate ads needing changes to meet standards (ascionline.in). Best Media Info then reported that ASCI flagged 700 ads from illegal betting and gambling companies to the ministry between April and August 2024 alone (bestmediainfo.com). The concrete detail is the shirt itself: Punjab FC’s 2024-25 jersey carried DafaNews across the chest.
