the times | Wednesday November 10 2021 2GM 59
Sport
The Premier League has blocked a
request for home teams to wear their
away kits on Boxing Day to raise aware-
ness for Shelter, the homeless charity,
because it would breach league rules.
Shelter approached some of the nine
clubs hosting games on December 26
with the idea as a powerful message to
help homeless people at Christmas.
However, the Premier League’s rule
M.22.1. states: “The outfield players of
the home club... shall wear their home
strip” and it would have needed a full
change of the rule to allow the kit
switch to take place.
A Premier League spokesman said:
“The Premier League receives a num-
ber of requests from charities, however
we aren’t able to support all [of those]
centrally. Clubs are entitled to support
charitable causes provided it is in com-
pliance with Premier League rules.”
Top flight’s charity snub
Martyn Ziegler Chief Sports Reporter Clubs are permitted to support good
causes on their shirts — for one match
a season they can swap their sponsor’s
logo for “charitable messaging”.
Aston Villa, Brighton & Hove Albion,
Burnley, Liverpool, Manchester City,
Norwich City, Tottenham Hotspur,
West Ham United and Wolverhampton
Wanderers are all at home on Boxing
Day, with Newcastle United hosting
Manchester United the following day.
It is understood that the EFL has also
been approached by Shelter with the
idea of home sides in the Sky Bet
Championship, League One and
League Two wearing away kits, and it
has no issue with the plan as long as
clubs ensure there is no clash of shirts.
The EFL has an existing relationship
with the mental-health charity Mind
but has told Shelter that it is free to con-
tact clubs individually. It is understood
that a number are interested in partak-
ing in the initiative.
England’s top-flight clubs face being
obliged to have all new sponsorship
deals approved by the Premier
League under a plan to tighten rules
on “related party” commercial
contracts (Martyn Ziegler writes).
A Premier League working party
set up after the Saudi Arabia-backed
takeover of Newcastle United is
looking at rule changes around
sponsorship. Amanda Staveley, the
Newcastle director, is among the
members of the group led by Richard
Masters, the league’s chief executive.
Any new related party sponsorship
deals have been temporarily banned
in a decision by the clubs, who fear a
transfer and wages arms race in the
Premier League if huge new
sponsorship deals with SaudiClubs may need league approval for sponsorship deals
companies are done, but that will not
be a permanent ban. Instead the
working party is expected to propose a
new system in which deals would need
pre-approval from the league’s board
to ensure they were of fair market
value and not inflated due to links
between the club and their sponsor.
At present deals are treated as
related party ones only if they are
reported as such in the club’s annual
accounts. As a result Manchester
City’s deals with Etihad, for example,
or Everton’s sponsorship by the
company USM (whose chairman is
the club’s owner, Farhad Moshiri)
have not been deemed related party
contracts. The new proposal aims to
give a broader definition of such deals
rather than leaving clubs to self-report.Kerr and Kirby lead way as
Swiss roll over for Chelsea
Chelsea responded to Emma Hayes’s
call to be ruthless against Servette in
the Women’s Champions League
with a 7-0 thrashing of the Swiss
champions in Geneva (Tomas Hill
Lopez-Menchero writes).
Melanie Leupolz opened the
scoring in the eighth minute before
Fran Kirby and Sam Kerr each scored
twice in the space of ten minutes, as
Chelsea opened up a five-goal lead.
Jessie Fleming made it 6-0 before
half-time and Guro Reiten added a
seventh five minutes after the break.
Perhaps the most welcome sight
for Hayes, the Chelsea manager, was
that of Maren Mjelde coming off the
bench for her first appearance since
suffering a knee injury in March.SERENA TAYLOR/NEWCASTLE UNITED/GETTY IMAGES
Howe oversaw
training for the
first time at
Newcastle
yesterday. His
side are 19th
in the league