Football index

eh i dunno

Don't know if this should be here or in the gambling forum. Move if necessary mods. Has anyone tried www.footballindex.co.uk and what do you think of it? What players have you invested in so far?

patsman07

I've been looking into it too. Threw 100 into it over Christmas. I think it has massive advantages over traditional betting. I'm trying to learn as much as I can but I find some aspects a little confusing.

I hate the whole 'celebrity culture' aspect to modern football and I think the whole "media buzz" feeds off that side of the game. I would prefer to see dividends more aligned to performances than they are at present. From what I can see the way to make quick money is to buy futures in a player as soon as a rumour emerges about a transfer. Then selling just before the rumours die out.

The long term nature of the game means that it would actually be difficult to lose a majority of your bank. That is the major advantage football index has over traditional betting. Secondly, I think football index has huge potential and by getting in early people stand to gain from future members driving share prices upwards.

Be interested to hear others opinions too.

eh i dunno

patsman07 wrote: »

I've been looking into it too. Threw 100 into it over Christmas. I think it has massive advantages over traditional betting. I'm trying to learn as much as I can but I find some aspects a little confusing.

I hate the whole 'celebrity culture' aspect to modern football and I think the whole "media buzz" feeds off that side of the game. I would prefer to see dividends more aligned to performances than they are at present. From what I can see the way to make quick money is to buy futures in a player as soon as a rumour emerges about a transfer. Then selling just before the rumours die out.

The long term nature of the game means that it would actually be difficult to lose a majority of your bank. That is the major advantage football index has over traditional betting. Secondly, I think football index has huge potential and by getting in early people stand to gain from future members driving share prices upwards.

Be interested to hear others opinions too.

Don't like the media buzz side of it myself. And I agree get in early and then offload as soon as a transfer is complete. I'll throw twenty a month at it and see how it goes.

kerosene

I was looking through the football index forum, and I couldn't find Troy Parrott (Tottenham Hotspur), young Irish lad with a bright future ahead of him, (I hope). I couldn't find a value for him, but I assume this would be one tactic, identifying young talent and having a punt that they come good

eh i dunno

kerosene wrote: »

I was looking through the football index forum, and I couldn't find Troy Parrott (Tottenham Hotspur), young Irish lad with a bright future ahead of him, (I hope). I couldn't find a value for him, but I assume this would be one tactic, identifying young talent and having a punt that they come good

Yep that would be playing the long game. If you could buy 100 shares in him very early at say 1.50 and in two years he develops and he's worth 4.50 a share you'd make a decent profit.

kerosene

I still haven't signed up to football index, but I'm doing a bit of research into it. Would it be worth buying norwich city or Leeds United players now, with the expectation that they would be in the premier league in August, I'm presuming their value would increase.

eh i dunno

kerosene wrote: »

I still haven't signed up to football index, but I'm doing a bit of research into it. Would it be worth buying norwich city or Leeds United players now, with the expectation that they would be in the premier league in August, I'm presuming their value would increase.

Not doing it long enough myself to give a proper view but don't think they will rise a lot. Jack Clarke at Leeds has rose a good bit already but he's the exception. Young English players seem to be where the value is. Rashford, Sancho etc

patsman07

The value of players on the index is determined by demand and supply. But the demand seems to me to be highly irrational. The players on the index that should have the most value should be the players that return/have the potential to return the most dividends. However people seem to be buying players for other reasons. Rashford for example has never won performance dividends yet his price has rocketed since Ole took over at United. He is in a rich vein of form, but so far this hasn't transferred into any real extra value on the index. Although he probably is slightly more likely to win media buzz dividends, they would hardly cover his increase in price.

callaway92

It's another form of gambling where the guys running it can manipulate it however they like. It is nicely disguised though, I'll give them that.

Would avoid

eh i dunno

callaway92 wrote: »

It's another form of gambling where the guys running it can manipulate it however they like. It is nicely disguised though, I'll give them that.

Would avoid

Seeing the money people are putting into this is frightening. Screenshots with 10/20k invested

callaway92

eh i dunno wrote: »

Seeing the money people are putting into this is frightening. Screenshots with 10/20k invested

Very easy for people who think they are savvy/think they know their stuff about football to get sucked into this. The likes of people that like Fantasy Football etc.

Yes, investing money in the Stock Exchange is also gambling (to an extent), but this one can literally be manipulated at the click-of-a-button by the guys that run it. It's so scummy.

EDIT: Lol, their tagline literally highlights what I said above. "If you think you have a clue about football, this is for you"....

kerosene

The more I look at it, the more irrational the valuations etc of players looks. I think I would be more interested if it was performance related, defenders and goalkeepers could be more realistically valued. Il probably have a punt at it for a bit of a novelty bet.

callaway92

kerosene wrote: »

The more I look at it, the more irrational the valuations etc of players looks. I think I would be more interested if it was performance related, defenders and goalkeepers could be more realistically valued. Il probably have a punt at it for a bit of a novelty bet.

The fact that there’s such a large weighting on ‘media hype’ says enough...

kerosene

I have to agree with you there Callaway, I don't think I would be trading everyday but maybe take a punt on a few up and coming prospects.

eh i dunno

After 3/4 weeks of its interesting enough but it has plenty I don't like about it too. The media thing is annoying but it's only a small part of it. As someone who'll only be putting a small amount into it I wonder what would happen if it crashed and lads with 20k invested in it

patsman07

Don't see it crashing. It seems to be going from strength to strength. They have released adds recently on Sky Sports at half time during matches. It's gambling, but I think its a more forgiving form than traditional bookies. Particularly now while the platform is growing, most players you buy will increase in value due to the influx of new users.

eh i dunno

If anyone is debating signing up I'd recommend doing so today. Tomorrow the price of all players will be split so a player worth 9 quid today is worth 3 quid tomorrow. It's to encourage new players with lower prices. I'm 3 months in and have a profit of roughly 30quid for my 120 investment which is decent enough.

patsman07

eh i dunno wrote: »

If anyone is debating signing up I'd recommend doing so today. Tomorrow the price of all players will be split so a player worth 9 quid today is worth 3 quid tomorrow. It's to encourage new players with lower prices. I'm 3 months in and have a profit of roughly 30quid for my 120 investment which is decent enough.

Decent return. What way do you play it? Chase dividends or capital appreciation? I joined at Christmas and have a similar amount of money in it, originally chased dividends but unless you have a lot of money in one player your not going to make much. Capital appreciation is a lot harder to predict though.

eh i dunno

patsman07 wrote: »

Decent return. What way do you play it? Chase dividends or capital appreciation? I joined at Christmas and have a similar amount of money in it, originally chased dividends but unless you have a lot of money in one player your not going to make much. Capital appreciation is a lot harder to predict though.

Bit of both really. Got on early on Hudson odoi so he makes up nearly half my profit. The dividends slowly add up. Should be fun tomorrow when our shares multiply by 3 which means cheaper players so hopefully more demand.

Fitz*

How exactly do the dividends work? I have a few increases in price in multiple players but still own the shares. How do I get the dividends?

eh i dunno

FitzShane wrote: »

How exactly do the dividends work? I have a few increases in price in multiple players but still own the shares. How do I get the dividends?

Dividends are paid out only for the first 30 days you own a player. Every goal, assist and clean sheet pays out a few pence. After that you can still earn dividends for top forward, midfielder, and defender on any match day. There is also a media buzz dividend every day where whatever player generates the most news pays out a small amount. This is why players like pogba and neymar are so valuable because they are always in the news.

Fitz*

eh i dunno wrote: »

Dividends are paid out only for the first 30 days you own a player. Every goal, assist and clean sheet pays out a few pence. After that you can still earn dividends for top forward, midfielder, and defender on any match day. There is also a media buzz dividend every day where whatever player generates the most news pays out a small amount. This is why players like pogba and neymar are so valuable because they are always in the news.

Thanks!

I haven't been getting any dividends even though some of the players are scoring, which is weird. I don't think I have them longer than 30 days either.

eh i dunno

FitzShane wrote: »

Thanks!

I haven't been getting any dividends even though some of the players are scoring, which is weird. I don't think I have them longer than 30 days either.

Go to account and transaction history and see if there is any unknown actions in your account. It just gets added automatically to your balance so you might not notice. Only once a week too except for media buzz which is added every day

shamrock55

eh i dunno wrote: »

If anyone is debating signing up I'd recommend doing so today. Tomorrow the price of all players will be split so a player worth 9 quid today is worth 3 quid tomorrow. It's to encourage new players with lower prices. I'm 3 months in and have a profit of roughly 30quid for my 120 investment which is decent enough.

Jesus would you be bothered.. 3 mths for 30euro,i was gonna have a look at this but it seems a bit dull and boreing

eh i dunno

shamrock55 wrote: »

Jesus would you be bothered.. 3 mths for 30euro,i was gonna have a look at this but it seems a bit dull and boreing

I gave it up a few months back. Not worth it. Made a small profit but you'd need thousands invested to make a decent few quid.

Agent Coulson

Hope no one here lost money in this.

Seems like lots of people lost huge money on a classic pyramid scheme that this was.

Francie Barrett

Agent Coulson wrote: »

Hope no one here lost money in this.

Seems like lots of people lost huge money on a classic pyramid scheme that this was.

Never seen this before, but yeah, I don't think labelling it as a Ponzi scheme is unfair. The only way "dividends" can be paid out is by having new users depositing new money into the pool. Once the new money dries up, the scheme collapses as nothing is left to pay out the so called dividends.

eh i dunno

I know I started the thread but as you can see a few posts above I got out soon afterwards. Some people lost huge sums

Dante

Curious as to whether there was any regulation on this? It seemed like a shady operation from the get-go, wondering how they were allowed to take so much money from customers with such a flimsy business model.

Oat23

Entered administration tonight.

https://trade.footballindex.co.uk/company-announcement-110321/

blackwave

So I had put in around €150 into this a few years ago. Obviously thats all gone now with this. the way I treated it at the time was a long term bet and didn't really mind if my money was lost. However, I do feel sorry for people that went all in on with life savings. Saw one guy on Twitter say that they lost £115k on it and did meet people that said they were taking out loans to invest in it.

It was a pure pyramid scheme looking back, it relied on new people entering the market to jump up the price and the only way FI made money was when people sold.

Really hope that the likes of Adam Cole and the management team see some time for this. They were trying to advertise it as a trading platform and not a gamble and misled a lot of people. There was frequent referneces to entering a partnership with Nasdaq etc.

Francie Barrett

Some really sad stories of people putting their savings into this.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56401707

Fr Tod Umptious

Francie Barrett wrote: »

Some really sad stories of people putting their savings into this.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56401707

Honestly I don't have a huge amount of sympathy for them.

One person on that piece said they viewed Football Index as their savings account.
Seriously, that's just pure stupidity on their part.

Another said that the concept was still brilliant.
What part of the assessment from The Campaign for Fairer Gambling that says ..." Football Index is an unsustainable business model. They created a stock market out of assets they themselves created" does he not get ?

Even reading the few posts here back when the thread was created would make you wary of Football Index.

CSF

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

Honestly I don't have a huge amount of sympathy for them.

One person on that piece said they viewed Football Index as their savings account.
Seriously, that's just pure stupidity on their part.

Another said that the concept was still brilliant.
What part of the assessment from The Campaign for Fairer Gambling that says ..." Football Index is an unsustainable business model. They created a stock market out of assets they themselves created" does he not get ?

Even reading the few posts here back when the thread was created would make you wary of Football Index.

I feel this is unfair. Not because I’m an expert on the topic and can speak at length about it. I’m not.

But rather because I saw Football Index talked about tonnes and never really saw people calling or predicting this.

There probably was people who saw this for what it was, and fair play to them, but it feels like a lot of the conversation we’re seeing now is hugely aided by hindsight.

artanevilla

I think you'd have to ask yourself where you money was going to come from in this, if your assets as it were went up by 10% that means someone else's went down by 10%, or more likely they went down by 15% with the company pocketing their share. The whole concept is fundamentally unsound.

Unearthly

CSF wrote: »

I feel this is unfair. Not because I’m an expert on the topic and can speak at length about it. I’m not.

But rather because I saw Football Index talked about tonnes and never really saw people calling or predicting this.

There probably was people who saw this for what it was, and fair play to them, but it feels like a lot of the conversation we’re seeing now is hugely aided by hindsight.

I think the criticism comes at putting life savings into it.

The golden rule for any sort of investment like this is to never put money in that you can't afford to lose

I put 20 in it 2 years ago on Greenwood, Felix and some other guy can't remember.

Forgot about it til last year and cashed out 60. Not bad

CSF

Unearthly wrote: »

I think the criticism comes at putting life savings into it.

The golden rule for any sort of investment like this is to never put money in that you can't afford to lose

I put 20 in it 2 years ago on Greenwood, Felix and some other guy can't remember.

Forgot about it til last year and cashed out 60. Not bad

Still feel it’s harsh. Would I have the same sympathy for them if they’d made ‘bad’ investments and lost the money that way? Not so much, but it doesn’t feel like many expected this in spite of the fact that many have now revised their original view on this.

You had the likes of Fantasy Football Scout doing sponsored advice columns on their podcast for this. People were really made to believe like this was the real deal, and it’s clear that some of us are more flawed in terms of impulse control than others.

Muahahaha

CSF wrote: »

I feel this is unfair. Not because I’m an expert on the topic and can speak at length about it. I’m not.

But rather because I saw Football Index talked about tonnes and never really saw people calling or predicting this.

There probably was people who saw this for what it was, and fair play to them, but it feels like a lot of the conversation we’re seeing now is hugely aided by hindsight.

yeah would agree with this. The trick they pulled was coating all the language with investment speak rather than gambling speak. I only took a cursory glance at it at the time but had thought it was some sort of proper market, and thats the way they sold it. Schemes like this depend on people not reading the terms and conditions, had they done so somewhere buried in there it would have said who they were regulated by- we now know it was the UK Gambling Commission and not a financial regulator.

I think the Gambling Commission themselves have questions to answer for allowing a gambling company to effectively trick people into believing they were actually investing. While its the peoples own fault for not reading the T&Cs the Gambling Commision should never have allowed it to be sold in the way it was.

Unearthly

CSF wrote: »

Still feel it’s harsh. Would I have the same sympathy for them if they’d made ‘bad’ investments and lost the money that way? Not so much, but it doesn’t feel like many expected this in spite of the fact that many have now revised their original view on this.

You had the likes of Fantasy Football Scout doing sponsored advice columns on their podcast for this. People were really made to believe like this was the real deal, and it’s clear that some of us are more flawed in terms of impulse control than others.

I think for the small punters they wouldn't have put much thought into it and probably never considered that the company might go dissolved but the ones with 5 or 6 figures should have done a full risk management evaluation.

I spent weeks sometimes months researching about property, stocks and cryptocurrency before going into them to protect myself

It's a horrible tough lesson but you need to evaluate risk or you will be eaten alive

callaway92

callaway92 wrote: »

It's another form of gambling where the guys running it can manipulate it however they like. It is nicely disguised though, I'll give them that.

Would avoid

callaway92 wrote: »

Very easy for people who think they are savvy/think they know their stuff about football to get sucked into this. The likes of people that like Fantasy Football etc.

Yes, investing money in the Stock Exchange is also gambling (to an extent), but this one can literally be manipulated at the click-of-a-button by the guys that run it. It's so scummy.

EDIT: Lol, their tagline literally highlights what I said above. "If you think you have a clue about football, this is for you"....

Spotted this site a mile off being scum.

CSF

Unearthly wrote: »

I think for the small punters they wouldn't have put much thought into it and probably never considered that the company might go dissolved but the ones with 5 or 6 figures should have done a full risk management evaluation.

I spent weeks sometimes months researching about property, stocks and cryptocurrency before going into them to protect myself

It's a horrible tough lesson but you need to evaluate risk or you will be eaten alive

I agree with you. But also think we need to have a bit more sympathy for those less wise (and surely if they invested more than they could afford that’s about as unwise as it gets), particularly when preyed upon by genuine predators.

SureYWouldntYa

callaway92 wrote: »

Spotted this site a mile off being scum.

Didnt they decide whether players prices rose or fall? Not like with an actual trading market

That was the biggesr piece of bs i could see from it

Muahahaha

Fair play callaway for spotting what it was at the time, not many did. I only took a cursory glance at the time and wasnt interested so didnt look into it in any depth.

The thing though about pyrmiad schemes is they dont need to trick everybody, they just need enough people to get a buzz about their product and then that attracts fresh money which props the whole thing up. They repeat that cycle several times until it gets to the point they cant attract any new money and the whole thing collapses.

I remember there was a pyrmiad scheme operating here around about 2010 called Banners Broker, there was a thread on it here on Boards. They put themselves out there as some kind of Google Adwords clone where people could invest in internet advertising space and get huge returns. They deliberately targeted people in their 50s and 60s, the type of people who had good savings and knew a little bit about the internet but not enough to know they were being sold a pup. They did roadshows all over Ireland holding events in hotel function rooms to sell the scam. Thousands of Irish people 'invested' their savings into it and many got their friends and families involved as well. Eventually they couldnt attract fresh money and loads of people lost thousands of euro. The operators of it who ran the roadshows sounded like slick salesmen but they vanished into thin air overnight and loads of people were left out of pocket.

callaway92

SureYWouldntYa wrote: »

Didnt they decide whether players prices rose or fall? Not like with an actual trading market

That was the biggesr piece of bs i could see from it

Yeh that’s the thing. They manipulated the ‘stock prices’ themselves.

There was no basis on what made somebody go up more than others etc (or down more than others).

Was pure manipulation to gouge people as much as possible.

TFBubendorfer

Some more about this in the Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/mar/28/football-index-how-stock-market-ended-up-costing-customers-millions

I had a very quick look at this a year or 2 ago and immediately decided this was a very bad idea. Quite frankly, I'm astonished anyone would ever have thought this was anything but a gambling site.

Fr Tod Umptious

callaway92 wrote: »

Yeh that’s the thing. They manipulated the ‘stock prices’ themselves.

There was no basis on what made somebody go up more than others etc (or down more than others).

Was pure manipulation to gouge people as much as possible.

The only way anything like this could even work is to link the players to their actual contracts.

So you buy a player on the Football Index for a price based on the value of their current contract.

That player gets sold for big money and does a bigger and better contract, you reap the rewards.

He goes out on loan, gets sold to a team a division below and gets less money, you lose out.

Like real stock market the stock has to be tied to something real and tangible like revenue, sales, investment etc.

I'm guessing that players contracts are not public knowledge so something like the above could never happen.