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{"id":25131,"date":"2026-07-01T15:17:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T15:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/the-world-cup-goalie-turned-anti-gambling-campaigner\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T15:17:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T15:17:14","slug":"the-world-cup-goalie-turned-anti-gambling-campaigner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/the-world-cup-goalie-turned-anti-gambling-campaigner\/","title":{"rendered":"The World Cup goalie turned anti-gambling campaigner"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>The England football legend who conceded the \u201cgoal of the century\u201d and Hand of God goals to Diego Maradona at the 1986 World Cup is now &#8230; trying to influence the European Union&#8217;s budget negotiations.<\/p>\n<p>Former England goalkeeper Peter Shilton is a supporter of an online gambling tax. The idea was proposed in April by the European Parliament to help fund the bloc&#8217;s \u20ac2 trillion budget from 2028 to 2034, and has since won the backing of several governments.<\/p>\n<p>A former gambling-addict-turned-campaigner, Shilton told Blue Light News in Brussels that a new levy would starve betting companies of revenue that they would otherwise spend on advertising to lure people into gambling.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s so much competition between gambling companies that they&#8217;ll go to any extent to advertise and drag people in,&#8221; Shilton said during a visit to Brussels last week with his wife and fellow campaigner, Steph.<\/p>\n<p>The Shiltons campaigned for the British government to ban betting ads from Premier League shirts: &#8220;For youngsters especially, seeing their heroes in photos with a gambling company on it is not good.&#8221; They argued that having fewer gamblers would result in lower debt levels.<\/p>\n<p>The EU&#8217;s online gambling tax \u2014 which is estimated to generate \u20ac1.9 billion per year \u2014 is being opposed by Malta, whose economy heavily relies on online gambling firms.<\/p>\n<p>Maltese firms &#8220;will not engage with us at all. If anything, they&#8217;ve tried to shut us [down],&#8221; said Steph. &#8220;They window dress, but deep down they&#8217;re after everybody&#8217;s money &#8230; Simple as that,&#8221; echoed Peter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The England football legend who conceded the \u201cgoal of the century\u201d and Hand of God goals to Diego Maradona at the 1986 World Cup is now &#8230; trying to influence the European Union&#8217;s budget negotiations. Former England goalkeeper Peter Shilton is a supporter of an online gambling tax. The idea was proposed in April by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}