Premier League: two Arsenal FC ads for Socios.com $AFC Fan Tokens banned in the UK

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the self-regulatory body for the UK advertising industry, has banned two adverts posted by Arsenal FC (Premier League) and its cryptocurrency partner Socios.com on the club's webpage and on one of its Facebook posts (from 12 and 16/08/2021) on 22/12/2021.

"We've published 25 rulings today, including one which bans posts by Arsenal for taking advantage of consumers' inexperience in cryptoassets," said the ASA, which referred to the advertisements as:
• irresponsible, because they "trivialised investment in crypto-assets and took advantage of consumers' inexperience or credulity";
• misleading, because they "failed to illustrate the risk of the investment."

While the promotional posts in question warned fans that they could "lose some or all of their money invested" by purchasing Socios.com's tokens, "Fan Tokens" ($AFC), they did not explicitly state that this was "did not make clear the token was a crypto-asset, which could only be obtained by opening an account and exchanging with another cryptocurrency which had to be purchased."

Arsenal…