Aston Villa signed a cooperation agreement with a betting company.
Next season, Aston Villa’s jersey will read Bk8 instead of Cazoo. EPA / AOP
Premier League club Aston Villa announced last week that it has started cooperation with betting company BK8.
Villa signed a three-year cooperation agreement with the company. As a result of the deal, BK8’s logo will appear in a central place on the club’s jerseys, and the betting company will donate money to charity from every triple jersey sold.
Sports website Josimarin according to BK8 is an Asian betting company that operates illegally in the countries of the Far East. The company is known, for example, for the shirt of Teemu Puki’s former club Norwich, as it acted as a partner of the club in 2021, for example.
In its press release, Villa made it clear that the company is more of a charity than a betting company. It did not mention a word about betting in its announcement.
At that time, BK8 and Norwich got into the middle of a commotion, because one of the company’s Instagram accounts published advertising pictures aimed at adults. They featured young scantily clad women and many fans considered the content to be adult entertainment. Norwich ended the cooperation quickly.
When rumors started of a partnership between Aston Villa and the company in January, it caused a dismayed reception among fans. Villa assured at the time that BK8 has learned from its mistakes and ensured that exploitative and almost pornographic content like the one seen will be removed from the pages of the company’s subsidiaries.
However, Josimar visited Asian-facing websites and noticed that the images used by the company still featured very young, scantily clad women.
Illegal
The website says that BK8 operates in areas where betting is prohibited by law, such as Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, as well as other countries in the Far East.
Large fines and even prison sentences can be imposed in these countries for gambling, its promotion and advertising.
The website points out that Aston Villa provides visibility and credibility to the company by presenting the betting company as legitimate. It attracts people living in the Far East to play, even though gambling is prohibited in these countries.
Aston Villa’s advertising activity has been made possible by the United Kingdom, as the country’s state regulatory authority, the UK Gambling Commission, has granted BK8 a business license. It has been granted despite evidence that the company conducts most of its business in countries where betting is prohibited.
However, since the beginning of July, Black Hawk Technology Co Ltd, the global owner of the BK8 brand, was caught by the British government. Namely, the company will be removed from the UK trade register and it will be closed by force on July 2. All the company’s assets are transferred to the ownership of the crown.
Black Hawk Technology was founded in 2020 but has not submitted its financial statements since February 2022.
The Guardian said a few months ago that betting companies’ partnerships with Premier League clubs will be banned from summer 2026.