According to reports, Cristiano Ronaldo has been served with a lawsuit alleging his connection with a contentious cryptocurrency exchange.
Last year, the 38-year-old Al Nassr star signed a deal with Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume at the time, according to Reuters.
Ronaldo introduced his first NFT collection in collaboration with Binance last November, telling supporters, “This is your chance to join my Web3 community and own iconic moments from my career.”
On Tuesday, Ronaldo tweeted about his connection with Binance, writing: X (Twitter): “Cooking something up with Binance.”
The Alpine F1 Team is also sponsored by the corporation, and it recently held a competition for a little replica helmet worn by Pierre Gasly, who drives for the French team.
In a contentious arrangement, the exchange became the principal sponsor of Argentina’s national team and took over naming rights to the country’s first division in January 2022.
Binance terminated the arrangement in July of this year, alleging that the AFA had not ‘completely met its contractual obligations’.
In the same month, Binance was sued by a federal government watchdog in the United States for alleged financial irregularities. Binance responded that the SEC’s complaint was “unjustified and should not be the subject of an SEC enforcement action,” but that the claims were being handled “seriously.”
Now, as reported by Coin Telegraph (via Goal), Ronaldo has become the focus of a proposed class-action lawsuit from three plaintiffs, who believe that they ‘suffered huge losses from his support of crypto exchange Binance’.
They believe that users who joined Binance as a result of Ronaldo’s endorsement were more inclined to utilize the exchange for other purposes, such as investing in alleged “unregistered securities.”
The petition makes the following claims: “Ronaldo’s promotions solicited or assisted Binance in soliciting investments in unregistered securities by encouraging his millions of followers, fans, and supporters to invest with the Binance platform.”
The petition also claims that Ronaldo was previously aware, or should have been aware, of Binance selling unregistered crypto assets because of his “investment experience and vast resources to obtain outside advisers.”
