A Spanish soccer club on Monday issued a public statement defending itself for taking out an insurance policy against its own possible relegation.
Osasuna, which is based in Pamplona and plays in LaLiga, said it took out a 1.2 million euro (about $1.39 million) insurance policy that would pay out about 6 million euros ($6.93 million) if it were relegated at the end of the season. (It lost its final game, but narrowly avoided relegation.) The club said it wanted to “clarify” its actions after “recent reports.”
The report was a story at Semafor the week prior that declared: “A soccer team bet against itself,” though the story did not name the team. The story said, “The owners of a top-tier Spanish soccer team had to move fast… So they turned to Kalshi, placing a multimillion-dollar bet against itself, in case the game didn’t break its way.”
That isn’t quite what happened; the club did not bet against itself and did not turn to Kalshi.
Osasuna took out an insurance policy with Howden, a British insurer—that was the end of the team’s involvement in the subsequent movement of funds. Howden (which was not named in Semafor’s story) subsequently went to Game Point Capital, which works with many pro teams to hedge against the costs of losing as well as the costs of winning, and Game Point went to Greenlight Commodities, an institutional middle-man, to place a bet on Kalshi for roughly the same amount of the team’s 1.2 million euro insurance policy.
