The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) alerted Hillside Sports, the company behind bet365, to a Twitter ad (now X) featuring Arsenal midfielder Granit Xhaka.
The agency warned the operator not to use people who attract children under 18 years old. The operator had retweeted a video posted on the Sky Sports Premier League Twitter account.
Advertising Standards Authority Positioning
The text on the video read “Granit Xhaka achieved this impressive finish last season in Arsenal v Man United”.
The bet365 logo appeared and then the video cut to Xhaka scoring a goal against Manchester United in the 2022/23 season.
The ASA said the ad was flagged as potentially violating the Committee of Advertising’s (CAP) Code of Practice because it featured a sportsperson who has strong appeal among under-18s.
The entity pointed out that by sharing the Sky Sports post, which featured the bet365 logo because of a sponsorship deal, the bookmaker incorporated the tweet into its own marketing.
“The advertisement included Granit Xhaka, who was a player for Arsenal Football Club at the time the advertisement was seen and would have been well known to fans of that club, and also those following Premier League football in general, including children.”
“We also considered that he would be known for being the captain of the Swiss national team. Therefore, we considered that it would likely appeal strongly to under-18s.”
Bet365 response
bet365 argued that the tweet was produced by Sky Sports not itself and that its logo appeared on-screen for just five seconds compared to 21 seconds for the Sky Sports Premier League logo.
Furthermore, the betting company argued that only 0.2% of Sky Sports Premier League Twitter followers were under 18 and that Xhaka did not have a public Twitter profile.
On the soccer player’s Instagram account, only 0.4% of his followers were under the age of 18, although 32.3% of his TikTok followers were underage.
However, as with other recent rulings, the ASA noted that Twitter relies on self-verification.
Therefore, the ages recorded by users cannot be considered reliable. Similar decisions were made regarding Ladbrokes Twitter advertisements.
