Flutter scraps RTÉ deal ahead of Irish ad ban

Flutter Entertainment has “concluded” its international football sponsorship agreement with Irish national broadcaster RTÉ, ahead of the implementation of a ‘whistle-to-whistle’ style ban on TV advertising.

The six-figure agreement, which covers the Ireland-facing Paddy Power brand, included the rights to showing the firm’s logo on screen during games next to the clock and live score graphics.

Paddy Power had recently removed the logo from the live match screen, however, adverts for its brand still open and close Irish international football coverage, something which will now end under the new arrangement from the conclusion of the current season.

The deal, which covered the 2021 football season, had previously been expected to be extended into 2022, however this will now not materialise.

In comments reported by the Irish Independent, Flutter confirmed the conclusion of the deal comes as part of the firm’s strategy of pre-emptively introducing regulatory changes before they are implemented.

“Paddy Power don’t just support the incoming whistle-to-whistle ban as a company, we have already taken a market-leading position on this intervention,” Paddy Power said.

“We took the decision to voluntarily implement a pre-watershed whistle-to-whistle ban on advertising ahead of Euro 2020 which applied to any adverts run on RTÉ in the interim.

“We also moved to use all existing slots available to us pre- and post-match to exclusively promote our ‘Take A Break’ safer gambling tool during Ireland’s final four matches in the Men’s Fifa World Cup Qualifiers,” Paddy Power added.

The decision to realign its Irish sponsorship comes ahead of new guidelines introduced by the Irish Bookmakers Association (IBA), which include the implementation of a UK-style ‘whistle-to-whistle’ ban on advertising during live sporting events from 1 January 2022.

The voluntary agreement includes all advertising for the duration of the live sporting events from five minutes before the start of a sporting occasion to five minutes after, any breaks of play and half-time adverts, as well as pitch-side LED and other forms of marketing.

The second IBA initiative includes the formal removal of credit cards as a payment method both online and in shops by the end of 2021.

In April, Flutter voluntarily banned all betting on credit cards via its platforms in Ireland in anticipation of the changes and mirroring of the current ban that exists in the UK.

Later in September, the FTSE 100-listed operator confirmed the introduction of a £500(€500) per month deposit cap for UK and Ireland customers under the age of 25 across its Paddy Power, Betfair and Sky Bet brands.

The cap is expected to come into force in early 2022.

All IBA members including BoyleSports, Flutter, Entain and other independent operators, have committed to adopting these guidelines while other major online operators including bet365, Betway and Kindred Group have also confirmed they will adopt both updates to the code.

Only William Hill has not chosen to do so, based on the desire to wait for more concrete legislation from the Irish government before doing so.