A website and a Facebook post by the famous English football club, Arsenal, promoting crypto-based fan tokens violated advertising rules, as reported by the UK regulatory commission that handles this type of affairs.
The British Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has argued that the club “did not properly inform potential investors of the risk involved in investing in this type of product.” In addition, it stated that “the advertisements must not reappear in the manner denounced in any advertising medium or platform.”
Omission of the risk of investing
Immediately afterwards, Arsenal assured that they would seek an independent review of the error of which they are accused, adding that the club had provided sufficient and detailed information on the financial risks that investing in NFT can entail.
Yet the most critical ones, including some groups of club supporters, suggest that teams promoting crypto fan tokens are encouraging people to participate in a highly risky, and largely unregulated, world of cryptocurrency investing. and in everything that has to do with blockchain technology , a random field where the volatility of assets is immense and guarantees are very scarce.
Inexperienced consumers
The ASA ruled against two promotions of Arsenal fan tokens (the $ AFC, as the London club has dubbed them). The first infringement, according to the watchdog, targeted the content of Arsenal’s official website, in particular a page published on October 6, 2021 with the title ‘$ AFC Fan Token: All you need to know’.
The second offense was a Facebook post on the club’s official page, published on the 12th of that same month, 2021, which said: ‘$ AFC is already live’ and asked the fans: “What song do you want to hear when we win? ? Download the Partners application to get your token and vote “.
In its ruling, the ASA investigated three issues related to the publication and the text of the website, arguing that they were: irresponsible, because they took advantage of the inexperience or credulity of consumers and trivialized the investment in crypto assets. Misleading, because they did not report the investment risk correctly. In addition, he said that the Facebook publication “did not make it clear that the token was a cryptoactive, which could only be obtained by opening an account and exchanging with another cryptocurrency that the interested party had to buy previously.”
The watchdog found that both the website and Facebook’s post violated its rules: “Ads must not appear on the website again,” it said. In the future, the club must make it clear that fan tokens are crypto-assets and “that the value of investments in crypto-assets is variable, in addition to being unregulated,” the British watchdog stated. For their part, Arsenal assured that they take “our responsibilities regarding marketing very seriously.”
