Do not invest more money than you can afford to lose.
With the approaching of the UEFA Euro 2016 football championship and against the background of calls in France to ban advertising of online trading and the eventual banning of binary options trading in Russia, SMN decided to take a look at the forex and binary options brokers who advertise through football.
Football is the most popular sport in the world and the national championships in countries like Spain, England, Italy, Germany and France have long since transcended national borders. Footballers like Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Arjen Robben, Neymar and Wayne Rooney are not only among the best players, but are among the most popular and well-paid men in the world. It can be argued if their spectacular salaries are deserved or not, but the fact is that their clubs cash in nicely from sponsorship and partnership deals.
Some of the larger forex brokers have also jumped on the bandwagon and decided to take advantage of the massive popularity of football and the opportunity to reach global audiences.
In 2015 Plus500 (LON:PLUS) has signed a million deal for shirt sponsorship for the next two seasons with Atletico Madrid. This year millions across the world watched as Atletico Madrid beat Germany’s number 1 team Bayern Munich in Champions League semifinals and losing to its eternal city rival Real Madrid at the finals. Millions of people became aware of the existence of Plus500. Some might have even become their clients.
Barcelona, the most popular football club in the world, also has a forex broker as a partner – IronFX Global. The broker’s logo does not appear on the club jersey, but IronFX’ definitely uses Barcelona’s on their site.
The most popular forex broker on Facebook, eToro, is the first official social trading partner of West Ham United, which ranked seventh in England’s Premier League. The sponsorship deal was signed in 2015 and is for three years.
This was not the first time West Ham looked at the forex brokers for sponsorship. In 2013 it had a deal with Alpari as a principal sponsor and prominently featured its logo on the club jerseys.
Alpari, which is the largest forex broker in Russia, somewhat logically, has also been a sponsor of the local club Spartak Moscow and is currently a partner of FC Zenit St. Petersburg.
Another English football clubs that has a forex broker is Southampton. In 2015 it signed a sponsorship deal with OctaFX – an FCA-registered and offshore regulated forex broker that became its official forex partner.
Italy’s Milan also has an official forex partner – GKFX – a London-based and FCA-regulated forex broker, offering trading in forex, indices, equities and commodities.
Probably the most amusing forex-football partnership is that between the automated forex broker RoboForex and the amateur Limassol Police football team, which was announced earlier this year.
The binary options brokers are no strangers to football sponsorships, either and the largest ones have deals with various European football clubs, focusing on France.
There, of course, are exceptions to the rule. One is Banc De Binary which had a sponsorship deal with England’s Liverpool. It was signed in 2015 and has just expired with the ending of the season. Liverpool also had a two-year partnership with InstaForex for Asia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). It started in 2014 and ran out in the end of the 2015-2016 season.
The binaries trading platform BuzzTrade has a two-year contract with the third in Portugal’s Primera Liga – Porto as its official trading partner. The agreement secured a prominent presence of the broker’s brand at the stadium, on LED hoardings, media boards, and in hospitality areas.
Other three major binary options brokers have deals with some of the best football clubs in France. The leader in France’s Ligue 1 – Paris Saint Germain – has a sponsorship deal with the OptionWeb binary options broker.
The second in the league – Olympique Lyonnais has a partnership deal with 24option. The broker also had a two-year deal with the leader of Italy’s serie A – Juventus, which has just expired. The fourth in the French league – OGC Nice – has a deal with Interactive Option.
It is yet to see if France will implement the ban on advertising of online trading, but meanwhile the “marriage” between the binaries brokers and the French football team will obviously continue.
