Portugal to boost financial literacy of football players as focus shifts to controversial partnerships
As regulators increasingly focus on controversial sponsorship deals with sports teams, Portugal decides to bolster the financial education of its football players.
Those of you who are fans of football (soccer) are probably aware that Portugal has a solid reputation to defend in this area. That is why, FinanceFeeds has been keeping an eye on whether the Portuguese financial services regulator – the Securities Market Commission (CMVM), will make a move towards banning certain types of sponsorships like its French counterpart, the AMF.
Apparently, CMVM is aware of the impact that football clubs have but has decided to take a somewhat different approach when it comes to sports.
The regulator has announced that Portugal’s National Council of Financial Supervisors (CNSF), whose list of members includes CMVM, is seeking to bolster the financial literacy of Portugal’s football players. The Council and the Professional Football Players Union (SJPF) of Portugal have signed a financial training protocol earlier this month.
The protocol seeks to define and implement a plan of information and financial training initiatives aimed at soccer players, including young, active players and former players. Under this protocol, conferences, workshops and training sessions for football players will be held and a campaign to raise awareness of the importance of financial training will be held.
The endeavor starts with a diagnostic study of the financial literacy levels of soccer players.
The move appears more than necessary given the possibility of football clubs teaming up with companies offering financial services with which the football players may be not familiar. It is possible that a football player becomes a partner of a company whose services he simply does not understand.
Moreover, there is a trend of regulators banning or looking to ban advertising of high-risk financial products such as binary options. It is essential that sportsmen realize whether a deal they are proposed is illegal and may result in regulatory action against the club.
France’s financial markets regulator AMF has cheered the implementation of the advertising ban on high-risk financial products like binary options. The ban applies (inter alia) to sports sponsorships with binary options brands. As FinanceFeeds has reported, however, there are certain binary options firms that are not in a hurry to comply.
