In the middle of a relegation battle on the field, English Premier League side Leicester City could be facing problems off the field too, as the financial stability of their front-of-shirt sponsor has been called into question.
In July 2024, Leicester City announced it had signed a sponsorship deal — one of the most valuable in its history, the club said at the time — with BC.Game, an online cryptocurrency gaming platform. The site’s logo has appeared on the front of the Leicester City men’s first team jerseys since the 2024-25 Premier League season began in August.
But BC.Game’s financial health has been seriously questioned lately. According to iGamingBusiness, bankruptcy petitions were filed in October against the site’s former owner, Blockdance, and its current parent company, Small House, in Curaçao, the Caribbean island nation where BC.Game is licensed.
These petitions were filed by The Foundation for the Representation of Victims of Online Gaming and allege Small House has failed to pay out more than $2 million in player winnings since acquiring the site in February 2024.
In a statement dated November 21, 2024, BC.Game says the allegations “lack substantive evidence and fail to demonstrate any violations by our platform.”
The allegations lack sufficient supporting evidence, with many claims based solely on unverified statements. Our internal investigations have revealed discrepancies in the cases cited by the plaintiffs, with most accusations lacking a clear legal or technical basis. We affirm that BC.GAME has adhered to industry compliance standards in all relevant operations.
— BC.Game statement
The statement also raises concerns about lawyers’ conduct in the case and inconsistencies in the case evidence.
For their part, Leicester City also released a statement of support for BC.Game:
“We have been and continue to be in regular discussions with BC.Game with regard to an active legal case in Curacao. BC.Game have provided the Club with the strongest assurances that they are actively appealing this case, and that the process which has been initiated in Curacao is administrative in nature and has not arisen due to any concerns with their financial standing.
“BC.Game have further assured us that they have no issues with liquidity and that they remain fully committed to meeting their ongoing contractual and financial obligations, including to the Club, and that this case will not impact on BC.Game’s continuing international operations.”
— Leicester City spokesperson
Should BC.Game not be able to fulfill their deal with Leicester City, it wouldn’t be the first time in recent memory that a cryptocurrency firm has had to terminate a sponsorship contract early. Late in the 2022-23 season, Italian clubs AS Roma and Inter Milan both dropped their front-of-shirt sponsor, blockchain company DigitalBits, over missed contract payments.
AC Milan played in blank shirts for a few games before securing streaming service Paramount+ as a new sponsor for the final match of the Serie A season and the UEFA Champions League final. AS Roma, meanwhile, played the rest of the season with the initials “SPQR” on their shirts. The acronym stands for “Senatus PopulusQue Romanus” (“The Senate and the People of Rome”) and it also “appears on Roman currency, at the end of documents made public by an inscription in stone or metal, and in dedications of monuments and public and civil works,” according to Wikipedia. The full phrase “appears in Roman political, legal, and historical literature.”
