Not so long ago there were rumblings that Wonga's financial issues and new direction under a new chairman might mean that the legal loan shark might be compelled to pull out of their sponsorship deal with Newcastle United, but nothing really came of it and fans are still walking around some of the poorest areas in the country advertising a quick way to get into some seriously disabling debt. There are now calls from two Newcastle MPs for Wonga to be categorised the same way as companies promoting alcohol, because the practice of selling shirts to youngsters in the region is morally wrong and encourages a culture of poor financial choices. Catherine McKinnell and Chi Onwurah say that the likes of Wonga should be brought in line with the alcoholic drinks and gambling industries, after a crackdown on lending practices by the financial regulator. Rangers and Celtic both removed sponsors from their replica kits for children due to the terms of the sponsorship deals they'd set up with two alcohol companies, so there is precedent for considerations of children to affect change, but it's hardly going to be completely successful when the same kids can still see their parents advertising the same companies. But Wonga and pay-day lenders are different - kids are brought up to learn that abusing alcohol is morally wrong and bad for you, and you can usually get to a reasonably advanced age before you see kids trying alcohol. Without the same sort of regulation and the moral issues surrounding pay-day lenders very much being a grey-scale how can anyone really chart what effect that's going to have on impressionable minds. Anyone with first or second hand experience of what happens when these companies fail to diligently check who they are lending to will offer testament that they do not consciously safeguard the financially vulnerable, or people who shouldn't be making those decisions for themselves. The potentially good news for Newcastle fans who object to the sponsor is that Wongas chairman Andy Haste recently claimed that his company didnt want to actively target the vulnerable and the young after seeing lots of negative public reaction, so it seems there will be a sticking point sooner rather than later when he realises that selling shirts to kids with Wonga on them is counter to that agenda. He has already removed TV advertising, so there might be a chance that soon he will crumble to protests and remove the sponsors from juvenile shirts. And then, hopefully Wonga will re-assess their relationship with Newcastle entirely and end the deal. Though Mike Ashley would no doubt require some sort of financial compensation to allow that to happen. Pressure from supporters saw Bolton drop QuickQuid as a shirt sponsor for the 2013/14 season - replacing them with University Of Bolton - so it has been done before. But whether it would work with someone as strong-headed as Mike Ashley - particularly when he knows that alternative sponsors simply wouldn't be as lucrative - remains to be seen.
