Better drop Merson from publicity campaign after complaints.

Byline: Graham Green

FORMER Arsenal footballer Paul Merson has been axed as the celebrity face of an award-winning betting firm following a string of complaints, writes Graham Green.

The ex-England international midfielder has fought a well-documented gambling addiction, but that did not prevent him being signed up by Better to promote the brand.

However, the bookmaker, who chose Merson to front the publicity campaign for their recently opened call centre and intended to use him to open new shops and feature on marketing posters, have now ditched the plan after getting a negative response from the public.

Both Merson, a regular Sky football pundit, and his agents, First Artist Management, were unwilling to comment yesterday.

Better, who launched in 2005, have 43 shops and operate a telephone betting service along with online sportsbook, casino and poker. This month they won Bookmaker of the Year at the Betview awards.

Managing director Ian Hogg said yesterday: "We have no wish to cause any offence or inflame gambling as an issue.

We like Paul a lot, and I wouldn't want it to be seen in any way that we didn't want to work with Paul."

Hogg added it was possible Better would join forces with Merson to publicise an "anti problem-gambling message".

Better's head of retail marketing, Richard Thorpe, said: "We did receive quite a few complaints and we are dropping Paul from the campaign to promote our call centre, but we will be working with him in the future and we are actually looking to do a problem-gambling campaign with him, possibly launching in about three or four weeks.

"I don't think we would have any problem with working with him as long as it's the right campaign."

CAPTION(S):

Paul Merson: dropped from campaign, but Better plan to work with him in the future