The Maritime and Commercial High Court of Denmark has ordered Hillside, the owner of betting company Bet365, to pay £549,712 in compensation to Christian Eriksen and 22 other Danish athletes for using their names and images on branding without their permission.
I don’t know about you, but I always enjoy seeing bookmakers lose money. Whether it’s on match day when one of the lads lands a lucky punt or legal battles.
At a court hearing on Monday, Bet365 was found guilty of breaching the rights of athletes by posting images and using their names on its social media channels between 21 February 2019 and 11 March 2021, as per Reuters.
The bookmaker made the argument that none of this output should have been regarded as editorial content because it was social media – but they lost their case as the court considered it to be a marketing tool.
Manchester United and Denmark midfielder Christian Eriksen was one of the athletes impacted the most by the case.
Other footballers included Kasper Schmeichel, Simon Kjær and Pernille Harder.
The sleazy and murky industry of sports betting pay the price for pushing boundaries, which is something they’ve always done.
It will be interesting to see how Bet365 and other bookmakers tackle this in the future. They would be naive to play along as if nothing happened.
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