Rio Ferdinand has been cleared of misleading his Twitter followers after the Manchester United defender held a competition on the social network.
The defender offered to give away two tickets for United’s home match against Stoke in January.
The winner was to be selected from those who downloaded the Rio Ferdinand App but one person complained, claiming the promotion was misleading because it did not explain how the winner would be chosen at random.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), however, ruled: ‘We noted that the winner was randomly selected from the list of registered ‘addresses’ of those who had downloaded the app before the deadline and understood that those registered “addresses” did not contain any identifying information or contact details.
‘We were therefore satisfied that that selection process had been properly administered and that the winner had been randomly selected.
‘Because we considered that all the significant terms and conditions of the prize draw had been set out in Rio Ferdinand’s tweets, and because we were satisfied that the prize draw had been properly administered, we concluded that the prize promotion was not misleading.’
The tweets, posted on January 25 and 26 from the England and Manchester United player’s official Twitter account, included: ‘I’m giving 2 tickets away for our home match against Stoke (31st Jan KO 8pm)…I will tweet tomorrow morning with details of how to enter…,’ and ‘If you have downloaded the Rio Ferdinand App on iphone/ipad/Android or do so by Monday 5pm u may be randomly picked out to win the tickets! GO.’
A later tweet explained: ‘We only see registrations. Will be random pick & a unique message sent to winning device explaining how to collect tickets – no big brother!’
New Era Global Sports Management, which represents Ferdinand, said the application download was free and Ferdinand did not receive any fees for his role in the giveaway.
New Era said the tweets clearly explained how to enter the competition and who would be included in the draw, adding that it had gone to “a great deal of effort” to ensure that it did not mislead in any way.
