Football Index

[IrishBhoy]

Surprised not to see a thread about this on here as it seems to be picking up a bit of momentum, and has had quite an aggressive advertising campaign going on over the past few months.

Technically it’s not gambling, but a market where you can buy and sell players and make money from appreciation, or from dividends that you earn from a players performance I.e. goals scored, clean sheets etc. 
 

Ive been at it for a couple of months and have made just over 10% on my deposits without doing too much at all. The market seems to be heavily weighted towards potential of younger players to come through and earn dividends in the future, and players like Billy Gilmour and Bukayo Saka are already in the top 100 players, whilst players like Ozil are worth hardly anything at all. My strategy has been to buy into cheaper, younger players who are likely to move to one of the top 5 leagues in the future. My 2 biggest holds are Eduoard and Eljif Elmas from Napoli. 
 

Anyone else into it?

[SaltandPepe]

I started it last summer. Last summer I used it as a 'trial' and bought players I saw linked with transfers and then sold when making profit. However, I used last season to watch most of the players I bought and sold quickly and missed out on massive growth of some players.

Restarted this summer with just £100 but I'm up 25%. I just play with it and add £10/£20 every so often if there is Noone I want to sell but someone I see potential in.

Not all great, a few bad buys and as you said, established players don't seem to do well. Some times it's hard to make sense. For example, Hermoso, big transfer to athletico Madrid but down 12p a share since I bought him. Hold on and hope he becomes a first team regular.

Then Haaland I bought before he scored 9 in a game at the euro under 20 championships and he's up £2.50 a share.

I don't hold more than 5 in a player. I'm not in it for the money, just fun, like fantasy football, watch and predict who will do well. I see guys who buy 1000 shares in players but that's not me.

Two ways to go, buy young and hold on to see them make a big move, or buy the top players who will make dividends in media or performance. I'm defo option 1...

[welshbairn]

How does the firm that runs it make a profit? And are the prices just set by sellers and buyers, or is there some kind of algorithm from stats?

[SaltandPepe]

Think purely by buyers and sellers but I can't be sure.

They take a commission from each sale.

To be honest it's a lottery at times, but I enjoy it. Brewster, English lad gets a 2 minutes cameo in the EPL and his price goes up to a couple of £2.70 per share, whereas for example, koke, 27 so prime age, captain of atletico and Spanish international 90p a share. Pay for the potential of what if...

[D Angelo Barksdale]

Not looked at it for at least a year, but I think I've got about 30 quid in there. Need to check.

[Central Belt Caley]

I’ve got £150 ish in the platform, not fussed about losing it as I tried using the platform as an alternative to coupons etc 

Got about £15 in Dividends from Barisic after he scored 2 pens in the previous round of the Europa

[Adam]

I see they’ve now completely suspended deposits and withdrawals, and appointed administrators. I used this quite a lot a couple of years ago, made quite a lot of money buying Joao Felix when he was at Benfica before moving to Athletico. Took all the money out about 18 months ago to pay for a holiday.

When I saw this on Tuesday night I messaged a work colleague who got me involved in the Index to ask how he was getting on. He’s lost nearly £2,000 as a result of the crash in prices, however considers himself fortunate as he knows of people who have lost £10-15,000, which is mind blowing.

[Central Belt Caley]

2 hours ago, Adam said:

I see they’ve now completely suspended deposits and withdrawals, and appointed administrators. I used this quite a lot a couple of years ago, made quite a lot of money buying Joao Felix when he was at Benfica before moving to Athletico. Took all the money out about 18 months ago to pay for a holiday.

When I saw this on Tuesday night I messaged a work colleague who got me involved in the Index to ask how he was getting on. He’s lost nearly £2,000 as a result of the crash in prices, however considers himself fortunate as he knows of people who have lost £10-15,000, which is mind blowing.

There was claims that some traders had portfolios of 6 figures or more, not sure how true they are though

Its an interesting concept for a platform but can’t see any way back for it now
 

[Junior Pub League]

It reads like its been a massive Ponzi scheme.

[Adam]

It reads like its been a massive Ponzi scheme.

It basically is, they relied on new money being put in to pay dividends promised to existing investors. You’re buying shares based on nothing really.

[ICTChris]

Thread on the story. Some shocking details, the company were clearly in trouble but continued hyping their product, looks like they needed deposits to cover payouts. There’s also stories about people taking out bank loans to invest and a clip of the CEO advising people to max out their credit card to invest. The BBC have been running stories on it today.

 

[deej]

Assume any money in this is gone? 

 

I had £50 in it, few shares in Kieran Tierney, Mo Elyounoussi, and Eberechi Eze. All have done well and gone up since I "invested" in them, benchmark is sitting at £89.00 with £8.68 in dividends.

 

While it would be nice to get money back out of it, that's nothing compared to hearing about the folk with thousands in it. Mental

 

[D TOTAL]

1 hour ago, deej said:

Assume any money in this is gone? 

 

I had £50 in it, few shares in Kieran Tierney, Mo Elyounoussi, and Eberechi Eze. All have done well and gone up since I "invested" in them, benchmark is sitting at £89.00 with £8.68 in dividends.

 

While it would be nice to get money back out of it, that's nothing compared to hearing about the folk with thousands in it. Mental

 

Yeah I’m the same £50 with Tyrone Mings and David Brooks

[Funky Nosejob]

6 hours ago, ICTChris said:

Thread on the story. Some shocking details, the company were clearly in trouble but continued hyping their product, looks like they needed deposits to cover payouts. There’s also stories about people taking out bank loans to invest and a clip of the CEO advising people to max out their credit card to invest. The BBC have been running stories on it today.

 

“advertised everywhere”, including the Totally Football Podcast from The Athletic.

https://www.globalplayer.com/podcasts/episodes/3yyamS/

They’re really not entitled to any moral high ground here.

[ICTChris]

43 minutes ago, Funky Nosejob said:

“advertised everywhere”, including the Totally Football Podcast from The Athletic.

https://www.globalplayer.com/podcasts/episodes/3yyamS/

They’re really not entitled to any moral high ground here.

They mention that in the thread.

I saw about this on Twitter and asked another person about it. It just sounds so much like a scam I can’t believe it’s real. It’s a stock market based on nothing.

[Funky Nosejob]

46 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

They mention that in the thread.

I saw about this on Twitter and asked another person about it. It just sounds so much like a scam I can’t believe it’s real. It’s a stock market based on nothing.

Fair do’s. The Athletic article is behind a paywall and, whilst I enjoy the podcasts, I don’t think I’d get my money’s worth from a subscription.

I’ve been listening to the Totally Football podcast from the start, having followed James Richardson from the Guardian one. I remember the adverts for Football Index and having a quick look at their setup out of curiosity. Quickly decided it wasn’t for me.

[IrishBhoy]

On 16/03/2021 at 09:43, ICTChris said:

Thread on the story. Some shocking details, the company were clearly in trouble but continued hyping their product, looks like they needed deposits to cover payouts. There’s also stories about people taking out bank loans to invest and a clip of the CEO advising people to max out their credit card to invest. The BBC have been running stories on it today.

 

First of all apologies to anyone who put money into this platform on the back of me starting this thread, it seems to have been a quite sophisticated scam by the looks of how the business has been ran. I had some money in it which I have written off as gone, however the biggest scandal here is how the Gambling Commision have acted. 
 

Due to the accusations the GC have been receiving from prominent journalists and others within the gambling industry, they saw fit to release a statement on the Football Index issue, where they admitted that they had begun an investigation into the company 10 months ago due to concerns they had around the viability of the business’ finances. The vast majority of my deposits onto the platform were made in those 10 months. The GC have claimed that the reason they didn’t suspend Football Index’s license at that time was because it would have destroyed consumer confidence and instigated a market crash, however we are now in that exact position and have no recourse to claim back money from a company who are now in the process of administration. I think the story still has some turns to take and I can see some shady dealings coming out now that journalists/people who have lost money, are raking through all the details.  

Edited March 20, 2021 by IrishBhoy

[IrishBhoy]

On 12/03/2021 at 09:03, Adam said:

He’s lost nearly £2,000 as a result of the crash in prices, however considers himself fortunate as he knows of people who have lost £10-15,000, which is mind blowing.

There’s a guy on Twitter called ‘Big Don’ who had deposited over £150,000 into the platform. I’ve lost a wee bit myself but nothing to go mad about. Anyone who is putting upwards of 5 figures into a platform like Football Index is either extremely wealthy, or not the brightest. If I had that kind of money to throw around as an investment it would have been going into something a bit safer than FI. 
 

I think it was in September last year when I realised myself that the mechanics of the platform were flawed, and the profits shown were never going to be realised. Once the platform changed to the ‘Order Book’ system, and theoretically shares were now traded between users, the market would need substantial liquidity to even maintain the current prices. As people tried to sell their shares to other users, there wasn’t enough people willing to buy, and as the people selling started undercutting each other to get to the front of the queue, the value in most players fell off a cliff. 
 

For the platform to ever work there needed to be market seeding or liquidity providers who would fill the gaps in the market and tighten the spreads, similar to what an exchange like Betfair does where they will have in-house traders who are able to build walls around the buy and sell prices and stop the prices either rapidly increasing or decreasing. That obviously never happened and created a situation where more people wanted to sell than buy, and the sellers were willing to get out at any price so the downward pressure on the market continued. 
 

The only hope I see for users to get any of their money back is if the directors are found to have misled the customer base, and breached the terms of their gambling license, and that’s also dependent on how much money is left in the pot and how much has been siphoned off to other companies. They absolutely have misled their customers, as 5 months ago they stated that they were in the healthiest financial position they had ever been in, however wether they will be found guilty of that is another matter.
 

Adam Cole, the founder and ex CEO of the platform, is a multi millionaire who recently sold a £4 million mansion and owns a £2 million townhouse in Central London, as well as multiple other properties. He won’t need to worry about his financial situation I’m sure, but the people who have stuck thousands of pounds of savings into his platform on the back of false promises most certainly will. If the judicial system in this country treated financial crimes in the way that they should, then he would be spending a few years behind bars, but as he is a wealthy man who I’m sure has a good accountant and a good lawyer, he will be able to walk away with no punishment.