Porn website offers to sponsor UK university soccer team, school officials disapprove

For as long as there have been sports teams, there have been companies who sponsor them in order to get some prime time advertising with their names or logos featured on the shirts as the athletes get on with the show as everyone looks now. Now, an amateur soccer team in England has landed in hot water after a porn website has been featured as their sponsor. 

The Rutherford Raiders, a soccer team in England that plays for the University of Kent's inter-college league, could not find a sponsor for their club so decided to jokingly use the X-rated website Pornhub as a fake sponsor. The joke eventually reached Pornhub, and the company then went on to make an offer to become the club's official sponsor.

Kent officials, upset that a team would use a pornographic website as a sponsor, told the Raiders they would be banned from playing if they kept the sponsor, according to student website, the Tab.

"The University of Kent sports department would never sanction sponsorship of this type - it is totally inappropriate," said university spokesman Martin Herrema. "The team has been spoken with and will not be allowed to wear the shirts in question at any time."

"We take this issue very seriously and inter-college sports teams, which are the responsibility of Kent Sport, must present any potential sponsorship and/or logos for approval."

The Rutherford Raiders, winners of the 2012/13 inter-college league, are a team competing in inter-college, inter-university and university amateur league football.

Some players on the Rutherford Raiders team said the university was making a big deal out of the matter. 

"The university cricket team are sponsored by Kingfisher (beer), which is also an age-restricted product," one anonymous player told the Tab. "Clearly PornHub did because there's was an opportunity to create a bit of attention. I personally haven't come across anyone yet that has found it anything other than funny."