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A daily podcast delving into the biggest stories of the day throughout the sports betting and igaming sector.
Joe Streeter (00:01.787)
Betting finds itself embroiled in an early World Cup conflict as senior figures within the France squad demand that the French Football Federation reassess the use of player image rights by bookmakers. The revolt is led by superstar Kylian Mbappe who is once again asked the French…
No, no, no, no, no, no, no,
Ted (00:24.886)
Yeah, bang. My bad, my bad.
Joe Streeter (00:34.661)
Betting finds itself embroiled in an early World Cup conflict as senior figures within the France squad demand that the French Football Federation reassess the use of player image rights by bookmakers. The revolt is led by superstar Kylian Mbappe, who has once again asked the Federation to remove him and other players from bookmaker marketing materials. However, the Federation's hands appear to be tied as Betclik, the bookmaker in question,
had already acquired a media rights package from the FFF, the French Football Federation, for commercial use and does not appear to have breached any French advertising rules. Welcome to the iGaming Daily brought to you by OptiMove, the creator of positionless marketing and the number one player engagement solution for sports betting and iGaming operators. And as the World Cup fast approaches, we're going to discuss this kind of media, this commercial rights conflict that...
Yeah, it is once again really its ugly head and who better to join me then? Ted, can I call you SBC's chief World Cup reporter? that can I call you that? Ted Menmure from SBC News. Ted, how are you?
Ted (01:46.594)
Very well Joe, but what have you done with Charlie?
Joe Streeter (01:50.353)
He is North America bound, not for the World Cup, but for the second biggest event taking place in North America this summer, the SBC Summit. But yeah, great to have you. This is a really interesting discussion, Ted. It's one that I think kind of not just...
Ted (02:07.159)
Puss.
Joe Streeter (02:16.593)
is not just insular to this debate around French football. I think it threatens to set something of a precedent. But let's begin by reviewing the polyamics of this image rights fallout and how it has been reported by French media.
Ted (02:33.741)
So yes, the polemics of betting come early to the World Cup 2026 and the French media has framed this as a kind of a renewed crash between the commercial interests of their football federation versus the personal rights of elite players. And I was reported by L'Equipe this weekend that several senior internationals are uncomfortable with their images appearing on betting promotions and one...
particular bookmaker, that being Beck Click. This year's game traction because it touches on kind of broader questions with athlete autonomy, sponsorship ethics, and gambling's role ahead of the World Cup. French outlets kind of portrayed this as an attempt by leading players to regain control of how their personal brands are used.
Joe Streeter (03:23.857)
Hmm, interesting. It's an interesting one, isn't it? you know, I remember, I can't remember what tournament it was, but it was a good few years back where Cristiano Ronaldo sat on the desk, you know, for the Post-Match press conference. And there was a full fat Coca-Cola in front of him, ceremonial for marketing purposes. And he shifted it to the side and replaced it with water to be a positive, you know, took this real moral stand.
Ted (03:38.263)
Mm-hmm.
Ted (03:49.325)
that would have been euros, euros France.
Joe Streeter (03:52.805)
Was it the Euros in France? You know, and it really made me question, you know, at what point, if you're sponsoring the team, you're sponsoring the players to kind of support because you want to kind of be associated with them. If they are, because of that, disassociating with the brand, you know, if if Killian Mbappe is, is, you know, pushing back against Betclick, there's got to be a point where it becomes almost
Ted (03:56.022)
Yeah, yeah.
Joe Streeter (04:18.843)
counterproductive to sponsor the French national team for this operator or for this fast food chain or whatever it is.
Ted (04:28.205)
You know, think, look, I think, you know, there is certainly a chronic grey area here and a lot of kind of this pretends to be one of your sentiments and on your kind of perspectives of that relationship, you know, there is commercial activity, no doubt, beyond all parts of football. However, I think kind of the sentiment for French players to some extent is that their images are being used via...
betting brand and a betting brand that has purchased this kind of what they call a collective image rights package from the French Football Federation. Now this is nothing new, is actually the first bit of this conflict came in the last World Cup in Qatar 2022 and it was again led by Kylian Mbappe who told the French Football Federation that he did not want to see his image attached to any betting or fast food chain.
promoted to the French audience. Now, this conflict is again, yes it's involved bettoring, but it doesn't involve any kind of distributive betting in terms of French gambling and advertising laws.
Joe Streeter (05:38.777)
Okay, that's interesting. So you know, you are kind of saying that this is about, you know, this is this is a moral, you know, a commercial argument from from these players that you know, they want to regain their image rights. Do you think they are being exploited by bookmakers and by kind of, you know, these wider commercial partnerships?
Ted (05:59.342)
you
Again, mean, like I said, this is going back to kind of everyone's perspective on this and which camp you fall on. Now, you know, is it hard to have empathy with, you multi-millionaire footballers arguing about their image rights, especially given the fact that, you know, they are paid a lot of money, but also the fact that this isn't necessarily their image rights. These are the image rights that have been conducted by the French football moderation. Now, returning back to 2022, in the aftermath of that...
the French Federation changed the terms of how it sold its football federations and the rules and mechanisms in which betting or any kind of commercial entity that isn't necessarily sponsored to the players but it's sponsored to the Federation can take pictures and images of the footballers. One being that they can do it via kind of this aesthetic of them being in a team so has to have an image has to have four or four or more players and it has to be done in the setting.
of an organisation or entity owned by the French Football Federation. So in the case of Betclik, those pictures were taken during a training session at Clairefontaine, which is the French Football Academy.
Joe Streeter (07:16.933)
Yeah, that is a thing, you know, within clubs, obviously clubs are somewhat different to kind of federations and international organisations. you know, within clubs, sometimes when a sponsor agrees a deal with a club, they will do it. They will agree that deal fully acknowledging that there are certain players, obviously bigger players, that when they do marketing material with that player, it has to involve
Ted (07:22.541)
Yeah.
Ted (07:36.258)
Mm-hmm.
Joe Streeter (07:45.499)
Three other players, obviously, think Cristiano Ronaldo is the bigger obvious example there. So, I think that there have been deals where he can't appear on his own promoting the purely hypothetically here, the chief, whatever sponsor of Man United, a niche sponsor.
Ted (07:49.12)
Yeah.
Joe Streeter (08:07.025)
he has to be with other players. yeah, this is not, know, footballers in the modern age as kind of football has evolved and commercial, the commercial side of football has evolved and star power of football players globally has grown. Football players kind of wanted to take you know, take hold of their commercial rights and their brand is not a new thing. But I mean, you know, when we're dealing with those star players, yeah, go on, go on.
Ted (08:22.357)
Yep.
Ted (08:30.316)
I mean, here I'd interject, yeah. I mean, here I'd interject and say this is a much-in-the-story of killing in BAPI, his image rights, and how he wants something to be distributed to the public. And again, as you were saying, we've seen this before with Cristiano Ronaldo, and you're talking about billion dollar, billion euro athlete.
Joe Streeter (08:39.824)
Yep.
Ted (08:54.171)
who's agents and in itself, know, his whole kind of organization is very wary of his kind of commercial value. And it, you know, it doesn't necessarily want it to be seen with a bad thing or, you know, if you take a picture of him, it has to have come with sponsorship terms or sponsorship attachment to it.
In terms of why this story has been picked up by the media, it's clear that any kind of movement, especially in the French camp by Kylian Mbappe, he is the superstar there. He is the figurehead of Le Bleu and he's the one generating the headlines this summer, both in his football club, both in the French national squad, but also in his football club, Real Madrid.
Joe Streeter (09:38.725)
Yep. They love a bit of turmoil before a World Cup as well, the French camp, don't they? There's always a bit of chaos there. They never smooth sail into a World Cup, do they? They do love a bit of turmoil just in the camp. So yeah, wouldn't be a World Cup without a bit of French chaos, I guess. But yeah, you're right to raise the point as well. I think this probably doesn't move the needle as much. If it's any other player but Kylian Mbappe, he really does move that needle. So yeah.
Ted (09:43.948)
Yes
Joe Streeter (10:07.462)
The French Football Federation said they thought they had this one penned down 2022. They thought they had this one under wraps, but here we are again. What's changed?
Ted (10:13.846)
I think.
Ted (10:19.296)
Well, again, this just, you know, returns back to the original conflict and players want to get autonomy on their rights. There are kind of intricacies and nuances here. I think, as we've seen in other cases, such as the example there with, I think, Liverpool and Mane.
in terms of being sponsored by an alcohol or a beverages company so there are kind of religious factors and certainly one or two will have kind of ethical factors about being sponsored or being seen on a bookmaker advert. I think part of the problem here is that the French Federation probably just doesn't have the mechanisms.
or the resources, or hasn't dedicated any resources to looking at this kind of collective image rights packages and how they're being shot. I mean, it's so easy to just say, just don't take a picture of Killian and problem solved.
Joe Streeter (11:19.321)
It's hard though because he's so fast, bet he gets in all the pictures, you you're taking a picture in training and he's not in it and then he's in it one minute, you know, not an easy job for a photographer. yeah, okay. So, so collective image rights. Yeah, how, I guess how, how, how are they owned? Yeah, how, how, what protections can you put in place when, you know, they are kind of, there are kind of protective image, collective image rights by a governing body.
Ted (11:24.012)
You
Ted (11:49.109)
Okay, so I think you've got to take this from the view of the governing body. And here, Collective Ruby tried to provide federations with just a practical platform to kind of commercialise national teams and the sponsorship of national teams. to be honest, without the negotiation sponsorships would be just impossible. The other thing is that these kind of blur.
Joe Streeter (11:52.785)
Mm.
Ted (12:16.266)
the sponsorships between the individual, the teams and the leagues. know, who owns what.
Joe Streeter (12:22.139)
Yeah.
Ted (12:22.25)
Let's take a look at the Premier League. You you're playing for the Barclays Premier League. They can use your image rights for the fantasy football, for wider promotions, for TV advertising, but that might not necessarily come back to the individual player. But at the same time, the Premier League would argue that the player is part of the league and that his status benefits by being promoted via that collective image.
Joe Streeter (12:47.311)
Yeah, yeah, sorry. guess another example of it is, and I guess what you know, when you're kind of just watching sports, you don't understand just how many intricacies and nuances there are in these contracts and how much goes into commercial rights. But one of the places that kind of brought this to light a little bit was excuse me, was with Zufa Boxing, obviously a different sport, but they kind of taken a new approach to boxing contracts as opposed to kind of
Ted (13:00.443)
yeah.
Joe Streeter (13:15.729)
your legacy promoters and you got to see just how much kind of how many kind of commercial assets are that come with being a sportsman that you know they might take hold of they might not but all these things need to be agreed when you're of agreeing a collective deal so yeah really interesting and video game rights is another big one that I noticed in there that you you can't you can't change that you've got can you have certain sponsors can you yeah really interesting
Ted (13:35.244)
Sure.
Joe Streeter (13:45.265)
But yeah, there's lots of different examples as well. Even for clubs is another factor when you're dealing with leagues and stuff. think it was Chelsea a few years ago tried to agree a sponsorship deal, a front of shirt sponsorship deal with Paramount Plus, but the league said that was in conflict of their potential rights deal. yeah, the kind of collective commercial agreements and image rights deals are...
They're not just limited to players, to football players. They're across the board. But we're going to head for a break, Ted, and we're going to continue to discuss this story that is sending a slight ripple across France ahead of their World Cup campaign.
Joe Streeter (14:35.055)
Welcome back. yeah, we're talking France. We're talking the World Cup and we're talking image rights as well on the iGaming Daily brought to you by Optimove, the number one CRM solution for the iGaming market. Ted, obviously, this is a debate that is rippling throughout France. Has the ANJ said anything?
Ted (14:57.515)
Not yet. And the ANJ, the France's government regulator, has not directly intervened in the dispute.
I think part of this is because it's a contractual matter between the Federation of Players and the licensed operators. And again, going back to this, BetClick has fundamentally not broken the rules of French gambling advertising. That are very strict and that have got restrictions on the use of...
athletes, influencers or celebrities that appeal to an under 25 audience. Now in the case of Beckclick, this was used as World Cup promotion. It wasn't mentioned in what type of promotion it was running, but I think it was either kind of an email campaign or a campaign on website, be it a banner or all that type of inventory. As such,
it can't be classified as a now public campaign for the ANJ to go to investigate.
Joe Streeter (16:07.537)
Okay, so it almost doesn't fall really into that remit as such. They can quite easily step back and kind of let it unfold. What I would say, Ted, is you mentioned that the rules are tight in France. It's not like it's a lenient advertising ecosystem. It is tough for operators to advertise in France. But when you've got a kind of story like this,
Ted (16:16.98)
Mm-hmm.
Joe Streeter (16:34.113)
Does it kind of serve to put further regulatory pressure on the industry? it serve to, you know, if they're operating within the rules and they're still ruffling the feathers of France's favorite son, Kylian Mbappe, especially if he wins the World Cup for them, is there a danger that kind of the ugly duckling image of the industry is only kind of further tainted because, you know, the sponsor, you know, there's this outburst by Mbappe.
Ted (17:04.437)
So as a market, France has some of the tightest rules on advertising. There's no prohibition, however the guidelines are very tight and very scrutinized themselves. They're being constantly reviewed by the ANJ and the French advertising board. Now in terms of, yes, I talked about that law on...
the of the appeal or the aesthetics of the advertising themselves. But they've got a lot, they've also have laws on the targeting that must be under 25 audience. And one of the kind of intricacies of the French regulation is that the ANJ itself has to sign off and authorize each campaign on a six month basis. So any advertising spend, any advertising creative will be reviewed by the regulatory
authority who will have sign-off. Now under those conditions I'm sure that each French bookmaker, all 18 of them, who whether they choose to market during the World Cup, their campaigns will have been scrutinized and they would have had some kind high-level oversight on them which is unique in the market itself. Again I think kind of the fallout comes out to it's the World Cup.
It's the main star and it's a story which kind of pitches players against the Federation. I'm not saying that this is unique to France. I think this would happen in any market if the circumstances were to arise.
Joe Streeter (18:34.19)
Yep.
Joe Streeter (18:46.641)
Yeah, that was, you know, I was going to ask you that, you know, does this set a weird president? Not weird president, does it set a, you know, perhaps a president of nervousness for the industry that, you know, we might see this in other places. We might see it with a club. We might see it at club level and yeah, does it set a bit of a weird president? Do think this could kind of catch on?
Ted (19:10.976)
It depends and I think a lot of this is how the Federation handles it. Again, going back to just how unique kind of these circumstances are and how little we know about what actually Betcliffe put out to market in terms of its promotion, what was said, what was communicated to the general public.
I just think that Bething always finds itself in the spotlight and especially now in the kind of commercial or just never-ending kind of commercial spectrum of...
Joe Streeter (19:39.718)
Yeah.
Ted (19:50.527)
gambling and sports and not just football but you know Formula One, boxing as he was saying and it even goes as far as kind of e-sports and kind of new sports trying to get kind of grow their audiences. That balance and that relationship is hard.
And it just doesn't, and again, I mean, I've got to go back and say that this is not just football related. I think this is across the board. And it's something that really just doesn't get talked about, about gambling and betting's relationship with sports and its audiences.
Joe Streeter (20:25.413)
Yeah, it's an interesting one. But you know, one thing I would raise about this case is that, you know, we mentioned, could it catch on to other clubs, other nations? But I also, I don't think this necessarily is, you know, ring-fenced to the gambling industry. I think this has potential to be a story within other industries, you know.
Especially since it's partly a moral story and partly a commercial rights story. I don't know how much players, we mentioned the kind of fast food chains at the top as well. Players might, there's a chance this stretches to beyond the gambling industry and there's other verticals of sponsorship are kind of embraced in this as well.
Ted (21:01.289)
Yeah.
Ted (21:13.716)
True, true and I think kind of, you know, the more kind of adult and advice sector markets, know, be it betting, alcohol or, I mean, okay, but put fast food in there now. And I think, you know, if you're an athlete and you do have ethical...
objectives to them. It's a free country and you're to say what you want and actually it's not, you know, and it could not just be necessarily to those types of industries. I mean if you could have an issue with a gas company or a banking firm that'd be quite novel. I might stand up for that, yeah.
Joe Streeter (21:49.016)
Yeah, no, no, 100%. And like, yeah, yeah, no, no, 100%. It could happen, right? It could happen. The dark vice sector, Ted, the dark vice sector, that the industry, is that the sector we work in? But yeah, so I guess to round us off here, because it's really interesting debate, but.
Ted (22:02.122)
I'll feed her. Yeah.
Joe Streeter (22:13.393)
and discussion. It's going to be one to one fold as well. I don't know. I mean, they thought they got hold of it in 2022. They didn't. But let's see. Let's see what happens ahead of this World Cup. But what should operators and federations take from this dispute before the World Cup begins? Which we're close now.
Ted (22:35.242)
I don't think you can learn a lot from this just before the World Cup. It would be interesting to how the French Federation handle this, whether they could, you know, readdress these kind of collective image rights again. I think that this will be strictly kind of a French affair, unique to who's involved in the dispute. I don't see this kind of unfolding in other camps.
Joe Streeter (22:47.183)
Yeah.
Joe Streeter (22:55.088)
Okay.
Ted (23:01.218)
and I think as you were saying part of the issue is that it's a good story to follow on but
But in terms of the wide sponsorship, I don't think it will have that great impact. And I think there is a clear distinction between sponsorships and collective image rights. I think where it gets complex is on each individual's sensitivities, which athletes are being shown.
But also, it's all down to each federation and how they apply mechanisms in there. You know, I'm sure that Harry Kane...
wouldn't want to be seen with a sponsor he thought was inferior to him or inferior to his brand. Same with kind of Jude Bellingham. So there are kind of individual nuances that you've got to work through. look, sponsorship at this level and with brands paying that much will always be kind of a complicated discipline.
Joe Streeter (24:09.444)
Yeah, yeah, agreed. But I guess reassuring that you're optimistic this is not going to.
kind of escalate, yeah, we watch on, we see what happens. Ted, before I let you go, the question, I'm not sure if this is the last World Cup podcast before the opening ceremony on Thursday, but the question on everybody's lips is how many of these matches are you gonna be staying awake for? 1 a.m., we've got some big ties in the early hours of the midweeks. How often are you gonna be awake watching these football matches?
Ted (24:42.91)
Well, with my sponsorship of Monster Energy, the most refreshing. I'll be watching all the World Cup matches, so stay tuned. Yes.
Joe Streeter (24:45.457)
All of them wow okay all right nice one we look forward to your full review of the big games but all right cheers Ted appreciate you as always appreciate everyone for listening and yeah we look forward to coming back to you tomorrow with some more iGaming Daily thanks ever so much