Steven Gerrard, David Silva, More May Face Inquiry over Promoting Adidas Sale

Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard, Manchester City playmaker David Silva and Manchester United defender Phil Jones are among the Premier League players who may have broken advertising rules by posting Adidas promotions on their personal accounts.

As reported by The Sun (h/t Jake Burman of the Daily Star), Watchdog insists celebrities who promote goods for sale should include "#ad" in their messaging.

While each Gerrard and Silva apparently posted their message about an Adidas sale in quick succession, none did this. Burman confirms Theo Walcott and Phil Jagielka may also find themselves in a spot of bother.

Gerrard's message was on Instagram:

Silva's tweet can be seen below:

"If we receive complaints that tweets have broken rules, we will investigate," said the Advertising Standards Authority, per Burman.

Rui Vieira/Associated Press

In September 2013, United forward Wayne Rooney was cleared of punishment in a similar situation. "A tweet posted by Wayne Rooney which plugged a Nike marketing campaign did not break advertising rules because its language was markedly different from the footballer's usual Twitter messages," wrote The Independent's Adam Sherwin at the time.

The ASA launched its investigation after a complaint stated Rooney's tweet was "not obviously identifiable as a marketing communication," per Sherwin's report.

Applying this theory to the more recent tweets, like Jones' message below, it's fair to say all of the recent Adidas-related tweets are identifiable as advertising:

Jon Super/Associated Press

None of the players involved will want to face unnecessary distractions at this point in the season, so it's useful if the matter is resolved quickly.

Adidas' timed campaign is an obvious piece of promotion, and it's possible the players involved actually didn't type the messages out. Still, the issue serves as another reminder of how careful professional sportsmen must be when updating their social media accounts.