Vol. 2 Arsenal & Bitpanda

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Earlier this year, when travelling through London with my wife, my attention was caught by a billboard advert whilst waiting for the tube. It wasn’t selling a theatre show, a fashion brand, or some dubious new health product. It showed three football players standing alongside the logo of a crypto trading platform called Bitpanda. The advert was announcing that Bitpanda was the official crypto trading partner of Arsenal Football Club. My initial thoughts were: “What does that even mean?” and “Why do Arsenal need an official crypto trading partner?”

So I stood there for a moment, genuinely bemused – not because it was unusual to see a football club with a sponsor (far from it; the game is plastered with sponsorship and advertising at any given opportunity) but because of the nature of this particular partnership, what it represents, the questions it raises, and the possible implications it may have for those who see it.

This moment was actually what inspired me to start this blog. I came to business education relatively recently, having worked previously in sales and marketing, and one of the things I enjoy most about teaching business is its undeniable relevance to the real world and the opportunities to bring real business scenarios into the classroom in order to support students in making sense of the world around them.

For business students, the main topic this particular situation relates to is that of business ethics. The argument for businesses doing what is morally right, and ensuring their activities don’t harm people and the planet, does seem to be making strides in the right direction with the growth of initiatives such as the B-Corp movement, which has created a framework for brands to prove their ethical and environmental credentials. So why do I feel that this situation perhaps isn’t following the path towards better business activity?

Upon looking into this story further, it appears that Arsenal have agreed a multi-year partnership with Bitpanda, an Austrian cryptocurrency trading platform, making them the club’s Official Crypto Trading Partner. Bitpanda’s branding now appears at the Emirates Stadium and across Arsenal’s digital channels, with players featured in promotional content. The club says the partnership will give supporters “the tools and education to invest in crypto securely and confidently.” Sounds reasonable enough on the surface, but I’m afraid I will need some more convincing.

Before we get into the ethics, it’s worth stepping back and asking a more fundamental question: why do businesses enter into sponsorship deals in the first place? Sponsorship is a commercial arrangement in which a business pays to be associated with another organisation, event, or individual. For the sponsored party – Arsenal in this case – the primary benefit is straightforward: revenue. Elite football is extraordinarily expensive to run, and sponsorship deals help clubs diversify their income beyond ticket sales and broadcasting rights, reducing financial dependence on any single revenue stream. For the sponsoring business, Bitpanda, the benefits are less about money and more about something arguably more valuable: brand association. By aligning with a globally recognised, trusted institution like Arsenal, Bitpanda instantly inherits a degree of that credibility. This is particularly significant given that Bitpanda were simultaneously launching in the UK market. Rather than building brand awareness from scratch, they effectively borrowed Arsenal’s. Access to Arsenal’s 100 million-plus global fanbase is, commercially speaking, an extraordinarily efficient way to acquire new customers. There are drawbacks for both parties, of course. For Arsenal, associating with the wrong partner carries reputational risk – if Bitpanda were to face regulatory action or a high-profile scandal, that negative coverage would inevitably splash back onto the club. For Bitpanda, over-reliance on a single high-profile partnership means their UK brand identity becomes tightly bound to Arsenal’s fortunes, both on and off the pitch. Sponsorship is a two-way street, and the risks travel in both directions.

If you’re unfamiliar with cryptocurrency, here’s the short version. Cryptocurrency is a form of digital money (Bitcoin and Ethereum are the most well-known examples) that isn’t controlled by any government or central bank. You can buy it, sell it, and – in theory – use it to pay for things. Bitpanda gives users access to over 600 different crypto assets. Why anyone would need access to that many, I genuinely do not know. Again, on the surface this sounds fine, perhaps even exciting, but cryptocurrencies do not behave like conventional assets. Crypto is extremely volatile. Its value can swing wildly, sometimes losing or gaining large percentages in a single day. Unlike putting money in a bank or buying shares in an established company, investing in crypto carries a high risk of losing everything you put in. The regulatory framework in the UK – the rules that are supposed to protect investors – is still being developed. In other words, it’s a legal but genuinely risky product, operating in a space the government is still trying to figure out how to properly oversee.

For business students, it is important to distinguish that – although there may be some overlap – being legal and being ethical are not the same thing. Something can be perfectly within the law and still raise serious moral questions. This is where the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) comes in: the idea that businesses have responsibilities beyond just making a profit. They have responsibilities to their customers, their communities, and society at large. Signing a legal deal with a regulated platform does not automatically make that deal ethical. For a club of Arsenal’s scale and cultural influence, that distinction matters enormously. The question isn’t whether Arsenal are breaking any rules. The question is whether they are doing the right thing.

Arsenal’s fanbase is enormous and includes significant numbers of young people and children. When a 15-year-old sees their favourite player promoting a crypto platform in a slick social media video, they don’t instinctively think “high-risk speculative investment with limited regulatory protection.” They think: my hero uses this, maybe I should too. That’s not naivety – that’s just how sponsorship works. It is designed to create exactly that association. Gambling advertising has strict rules around targeting young people, as do adverts for junk food and alcohol, and rightly so. Crypto advertising currently sits in a much looser regulatory space, although it does appear to be a growing priority for regulators. The ASA has already taken action against misleading crypto ads, and Arsenal have previously been criticised for promoting fan tokens in a way that obscured the fact that fans were purchasing a crypto asset. You might think that would have given the club pause. Apparently not.

Although the billboard I saw did carry a disclaimer about investment risk, I don’t believe that lets Arsenal off the hook. Fans – particularly young fans – extend their trust in the club and its players to the products they are associated with. A line of small print is unlikely to override the implicit endorsement of someone’s footballing hero.

The business case for acting ethically isn’t purely moral – it’s commercial too. Reputational damage is a very real consequence for businesses seen to prioritise profit over the wellbeing of their customers. We have seen this play out elsewhere: brands across food, fashion, and finance have faced sustained consumer backlash when ethical missteps have come to light, and the consequences have been lasting. For Arsenal, the short-term picture may feel comfortable. Unlike choosing between McDonald’s and KFC after a bad experience, football fans don’t switch allegiances. The club’s commercial decision-makers are almost certainly aware of this, which raises its own uncomfortable question about whether that loyalty is being taken advantage of. The longer-term picture is less straightforward. If a wave of young fans lose money following crypto investments that were normalised through club partnerships, the reputational consequences could be significant. Sponsors, broadcasters, and commercial partners pay close attention to sustained negative associations. Ethical missteps have a habit of compounding over time, and what feels like a financially sensible deal today can become a PR problem tomorrow.

In fairness, this is not a completely clear-cut case, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise. Bitpanda does hold FCA approval and the partnership includes a stated commitment to financial education. There is a reasonable argument that structured exposure to financial products, even risky ones, is better than leaving young people to encounter crypto entirely unguided. Additionally, Arsenal are far from alone – Manchester United have partnered with Tezos, Nottingham Forest with Floki, and many other clubs have partnered with crypto firms. The normalisation of crypto in football sponsorship suggests this is a structural issue with the industry rather than a uniquely Arsenal problem.

These are fair points, and I don’t want to dismiss them entirely… but I will scrutinise them: FCA approval means a platform has met a regulatory minimum – it is not a character reference. Financial education embedded in a commercial partnership will always carry the fingerprints of that partnership’s interests to some extent. Also, “everyone else is doing it” has never, in my experience, been a particularly strong argument for anything.

It feels to me that the primary beneficiaries of these deals are the crypto platforms, who gain enormous goodwill and credibility from association with globally recognised football clubs. I can only assume they are paying handsomely for it – I guess the players’ wages need paying somehow…

Let me know your thoughts in the comments. I have also produced an exam-style case study based on this, along with an accompanying set of questions to support teaching of the Edexcel GCSE Business Specification – please get in touch if you would like me to share these with you and I will be happy to do so.