Burnley terminate Finotive One front-of-shirt deal 42 days after signing
Burnley have ended their shirt sponsorship agreement with Finotive One 42 days after it was signed, the club confirmed on Friday, just ahead of their opening Championship fixture against West Ham on Sunday. The club is offering full refunds or exchanges to supporters who bought the 2026-27 home and away shirts bearing the Finotive One logo.
Two weeks ago Burnley unveiled a new cream away shirt in a high-profile promotional video featuring JJ Watt, James Anderson and Arnold Schwarzenegger; that promotional clip is now redundant. The shirts have been removed from the club’s official website and the club says they will not be available in the club shop before Sunday’s season opener at home to West Ham United.
Supporters first began to notice changes on Thursday after a Sky Sports promo for Sunday’s match showed Kyle Walker wearing a Burnley shirt without a front sponsor. Burnley had worn kits displaying the Finotive One logo throughout pre-season and the logo was on the jersey as recently as last Saturday’s Carabao Cup first-round tie against Notts County. The club deleted news items about the Finotive One agreement and on Friday confirmed the deal had been scrapped "to protect the club's interests, and those of our supporters." The club has not answered specific questions about how or why the deal ended and the BBC report said it is likely to come at a considerable cost.
This is not the first sponsorship issue Burnley have faced. LoveBet signed a three-year front-of-shirt contract but was replaced after two years after running into financial difficulties, an occurrence that followed the takeover by AIK Capital in December 2020.
Alan Pace addressed concerns about gambling-linked commercial partners on X, writing that the matter would be looked at "as part of the overall commercial strategy for the club." He added: "There may be some historic contractual obligations, but it's an issue I'll be reviewing with my team for the long-term." The BBC account notes that during AIK Capital's ownership, front-of-shirt deals have predominantly been with gambling companies, apart from a one-season arrangement in 2022-23 with Classic Football Shirts.
The sequence of previous sponsors under AIK Capital included LoveBet (later replaced by SpreadEx), the one-season Classic Football Shirts deal, Philippines-based operator W88 and, in 2024, a two-year contract with 96.com, a betting website run by TGP Europe. The Gambling Commission warned Burnley and three other clubs last year over links to sites run by TGP Europe, which had surrendered its British gambling licence, and an investigation found TGP Europe had failed to "carry out sufficient checks on business partners" and breached "anti-money laundering rules."
In seeking a successor to 96.com, Burnley turned to Finotive One, a Cyprus-registered company that describes itself as an "all-in-one ecosystem" built for traders; the BBC report said little was known about how it operated or who its customers were. Vertu motors, which has held a sponsorship arrangement with Burnley since 2022, stepped in to replace the front-of-shirt partner at short notice; the terms of Vertu's move to the principal shirt position are unknown and the club would not have had as strong a negotiating position. The Finotive One agreement, which a few weeks ago appeared to be the most lucrative on the table, ended after just six weeks, "causing them embarrassment," according to the report.
Some supporters may retain shirts as collectors' items, but the BBC said most will probably accept the club’s offer to swap or refund and take shirts featuring the new sponsor, the UK-wide car dealership Vertu motors. Burnley face West Ham United at home in their Championship opener on Sunday.
