19 September 2006 Blog Home : September 2006 : Permalink
MONACO, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Ligue 1 club Monaco said on Saturday Austrian online betting firm bwin.com, whose joint chief executives were detained for questioning by French authorities, would remain their sponsors.
"Monaco was not informed of any judicial problems between the executives of bwin and the French authorities," Monaco said in a statement.
"Therefore the commercial agreements between Monaco and bwin still stand," the statement read.
Manfred Bodner and Norbert Teufelberger, joint CEOs of bwin, were detained for questioning by French authorities on Friday because of alleged violation of French gaming laws.
Gambling is a state monopoly in France and online betting firms are banned from seeking clients on French territory.
French police detained Bodner and Teufelberger just before the scheduled start of a news conference called to outline a sponsorship between bwin and Monaco, who play in the French league (Ligue 1).
The news conference was due to take part at Monaco's training facilities in French territory just outside the Mediterranean seaside principality.
Bwin are the shirt sponsors of Monaco and also have sponsorship deals with several other Ligue 1 clubs and other leading European clubs.
It is interesting to note that had the news conference been held within the principality of Monaco, the Bwin executives would probably have remained free because Monaco is, of course, a separate nation. However that is rather by the by, just as in the US one suspects that the problem is not so much the ostensible one of preventing the punters from wasting their money as the current gambling businesses using the law to stifle rivals.