XTB Signs Lyon as Third European Football Club Partner

XTB signs Olympique Lyonnais as a main shirt partner, its third European football sponsorship deal since April 2026.

Key Points:

• XTB has signed Olympique Lyonnais as a main partner for three seasons, adding the French club to a roster that already includes Napoli and FC Porto following deals struck since April 2026.
• XTB‘s marketing spend reached PLN 435.5 million in H1 2026, up 64.7% year-on-year, as net profit surged 150.5% to PLN 1.03 billion on the back of a 79.7% rise in operating revenue.

XTB Signs Lyon as Third European Football Club Partner

XTB signed Olympique Lyonnais as a main partner, placing its logo on the French club’s shirts for the next three seasons. Neither party disclosed the financial terms of the agreement. The deal makes Lyon the third European football club XTB has signed since April, following a sleeve sponsorship with FC Porto announced on Friday and a two-year global trading partnership with Napoli confirmed in April.

Chief Growth Officer Szymon Szymański said the partnership reflects the company’s ambition to become the leader and most popular investment app in France. The agreement covers LED board branding at Groupama Stadium across all competitions, digital campaigns featuring player images, and financial education programs. XTB described itself as a main partner with shirt branding but did not specify the logo position. Emirates holds the front-of-shirt sponsorship under a separate deal running through the 2029/30 season.

Marketing Spend Accelerates as France Becomes a Priority

XTB spent PLN 435.5 million, approximately $117 million, on marketing in the first half of 2026, up 64.7% from PLN 264.4 million a year earlier. That figure already equals three-quarters of the company’s entire marketing bill for 2025.

France presents both opportunity and regulatory complexity. The AMF bans electronic advertising for high-risk instruments and prohibits trading incentives under the Sapin II law, limiting how XTB can promote leveraged products in the market. Despite those restrictions, XTB reports that its French client base grew 50% last year. The country holds more than 7 million active PEA tax-advantaged account holders, a pool XTB began targeting when it opened French PEA accounts in April 2025. Zlatan Ibrahimovic serves as its brand ambassador in the market, and the broker signed Paris La Defense Arena, Europe’s largest indoor venue, in March.

Brokers Are Back on Football Shirts

XTB‘s football push fits a broader trend of retail brokers returning to sports sponsorship. HFM became an official global partner of Arsenal in March, securing matchday branding at the Emirates Stadium. WeTrade signed a multi-year deal with the Houston Rockets, while CFI Financial Group partnered with Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Arena in July 2025 and IG Group moved into Japan’s Aichi International Arena in early 2024.

XTB‘s own sponsorship portfolio extends well beyond football. The company holds FIBA global partner status covering the 2026 and 2027 Basketball World Cups and sponsors both the KSW and Oktagon MMA promotions. Lyon itself brings significant brand equity to the partnership, having won seven consecutive Ligue 1 titles between 2002 and 2008, a record in French football, and reached the Champions League semi-finals twice.

CFDs Fund the Investment App Strategy

XTB positions itself publicly as an investment app, and that framing resonates with new clients. Shares, ETFs, and Investment Plans accounted for 82.9% of first transactions by new EU clients in the first half of 2026. However, the revenue engine runs on derivatives. CFDs generated PLN 1.98 billion of XTB‘s PLN 2.07 billion gross result from financial instruments over the same period, with commodity CFDs alone contributing 75.3% of the total.

The financial results justify the spending. Operating revenue rose 79.7% to PLN 2.09 billion in H1 2026, and net profit climbed 150.5% to PLN 1.03 billion, both year-on-year. XTB added 703,333 clients in the first half, up 94.5% from a year earlier, bringing its total client base to 2.83 million. The company has told investors that marketing spending will rise approximately 50% this year, followed by annual increases of 30% to 40% between 2027 and 2029.

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