Olivier Giroud, who lifted the World Cup trophy with France in 2018, is now lending his star power to a very different kind of competition. The striker was named Global Brand Ambassador for BitradeX, an AI-powered digital asset trading platform, in a partnership that kicked off on June 12, 2025, with campaigns set to run well into 2026.
The timing is no accident. With the 2026 FIFA World Cup approaching and Giroud recently praising Netherlands captain Virgil van Dijk’s leadership qualities, the overlap between football culture and crypto marketing is becoming hard to ignore.
Football meets fintech, again
Giroud’s BitradeX deal is the latest in a long line of athlete-crypto partnerships, but it carries a slightly different flavor. The platform emphasizes AI-driven trading tools rather than the fan token model that dominated crypto-sports marketing during the last World Cup cycle. His role reportedly focuses on community engagement initiatives designed to pull traditional sports audiences into the digital asset space.
Van Dijk, meanwhile, occupies a different corner of the crypto-sports landscape. The Netherlands defender and his national team coach Ronald Koeman are featured as digital player cards on Sorare, the NFT-based football fantasy platform licensed by major football federations.
