Burnley Cancels Finotive One Sponsorship Deal Just 42 Days Later

Burnley’s new season has not even started and already the front of their shirt tells a different story.

Just 42 days after announcing Finotive One as their main sponsor, the club have ripped up the agreement, scrubbing the “trading ecosystem” from their kits, their website and, effectively, their recent history.

The timing could hardly be more brutal.

On Friday morning, Burnley confirmed the deal had been terminated “to protect the club's interests, and those of our supporters”. No extra detail. No public row. Just a swift, expensive divorce on the eve of the Premier League kick-off.

Refunds, wasted promos and a blank-fronted shirt

The fallout is immediate and messy. Supporters who snapped up the 2026-27 home and away shirts with Finotive One on the chest have been offered full refunds or exchanges. Some will keep them as curios – a misprint era that barely existed – but most will trade up for the new look, now bearing UK-wide car dealership Vertu Motors.

Only two weeks ago, Burnley had rolled out their cream away shirt with real swagger. A glossy, star-packed promo video fronted by minority investor and former NFL player JJ Watt, joined by ex-England cricketer James Anderson and even Arnold Schwarzenegger, was supposed to set the tone for the season.

Now that video is redundant. The shirts have vanished from the club’s online store. They will not be on sale at Turf Moor before Sunday’s season opener against West Ham United.

The first public hint that something was wrong came not from the club, but from television. On Thursday, Sky Sports’ promo for Sunday’s game showed Kyle Walker in a Burnley shirt without a sponsor. Odd, given Burnley had worn Finotive One across their chests throughout pre-season.

Even in last Saturday’s Carabao Cup tie against Notts County, the logo was still emblazoned on the jersey.

Then the digital trail started to disappear. Stories announcing and celebrating the Finotive One partnership quietly vanished from Burnley’s official website. By Friday, the club finally confirmed what many fans had already suspected: the deal was dead.

A familiar sponsorship headache

For Burnley, this is not a one-off embarrassment. Shirt sponsorship has become a recurring problem in the AIK Capital era.

LoveBet, an Asian betting brand, signed a three-year agreement, only to be replaced after two seasons when the company ran into financial trouble. That change came soon after AIK Capital completed their takeover in December 2020.

New chairman Alan Pace, facing criticism over the club’s ties to gambling, took to X at the time, promising that sponsorship would be examined “as part of the overall commercial strategy for the club”. He acknowledged there were “historic contractual obligations” but insisted the issue would be reviewed with his team for the long term.

The reality since then has told a different story. Aside from a one-season deal in 2022-23 with Classic Football Shirts, every front-of-shirt sponsor under AIK Capital has been linked to betting.

LoveBet made way for SpreadEx, a fixed odds and spread betting firm. After Classic Football Shirts’ brief, nostalgic interlude, the club signed with Philippines-based gambling company W88.

In 2024, Burnley pushed ahead with a controversial two-year agreement with 96.com, a betting website operated by TGP Europe. That move attracted regulatory heat. Last year, the Gambling Commission issued warnings to Burnley and three other clubs over their links to sites run by TGP Europe, which had surrendered its British gambling licence.

An investigation concluded that TGP Europe had failed to “carry out sufficient checks on business partners” and had breached “anti-money laundering rules”. The message was clear: the company’s operations, and by extension its football partnerships, were under serious scrutiny.

From 96.com to Finotive One – and another abrupt end

Trying to move away from that troubled association, Burnley took a different path when seeking a replacement for 96.com. They turned to Finotive One, a Cyprus-registered company describing itself as an “all-in-one ecosystem” for traders.

Little was publicly known about its operations or its customer base. On paper, though, the deal looked attractive. Inside the club, it would have been viewed as the most lucrative option on the table just a few weeks ago.

Now it has been binned after six weeks.

The financial hit is impossible to ignore. Burnley have shredded a major commercial agreement, paid the price of rebranding at short notice and watched a high-profile marketing campaign go up in smoke. On top of that, they have had to compensate supporters and scramble for an alternative.

Vertu Motors, already a club partner since 2022, have stepped in to fill the void. The dealership’s name will now sit on the front of Burnley’s shirts. The terms of the upgraded deal are unknown, but one thing is obvious: Burnley were in no position of strength when they came calling.

From the outside, the pattern is stark. A club repeatedly searching for front-of-shirt stability keeps finding turbulence instead. As the players walk out against West Ham with yet another new name across their chests, the question hangs in the air: how long before Burnley finally land a sponsor that lasts?