Can an athlete post a photo on Instagram with his Adidas tracksuit offered by his equipment manufacturer without specifying that it is a gift? Can a tennis player ostensibly wear jewelry from a major brand at Roland Garros and on these social networks without mentioning that it is a collaboration? To answer these questions and many others, the Advertising Professional Regulatory Authority (ARPP) and Insep announced on Monday June 29, 2026 the establishment of a “certification in responsible influence” dedicated specifically to high-level athletes.
Athletes, “economic actors in their own right”
The initial observation is simple: athletes are no longer just competitors, they have become “media and economic players in their own right, whose speeches on social networks are now part of the logic of content creation and partnerships with brands”. ARPP figures confirm this: in the first half of 2026, 3,750 French creators specializing in sport published more than 15,000 pieces of content mentioning a brand in the sports sector.
This project was born from a collaboration initiated at the end of 2025 between the ARPP, Insep, the Sport 1.5 agency and around thirty athletes from different disciplines: boxing, wrestling, surfing, athletics, gymnastics, taekwondo or fencing. The idea was to build the content of this training together.
To embody this system, the ARPP chose in particular the swordswoman Sara Balzer, followed by more than 164,000 subscribers on Instagram, where she collaborates with the equipment manufacturer Adidas or the jewelry house Messika.
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“Collaborations with brands can be a real asset to secure our journey and support our performance project. But this visibility also implies responsibilities,” adding that “mastering these dimensions is now fully part of our profession,” she explains to AFP.
A certificate of responsible influence
This system is not invented from scratch: it offers for sport the Certificate of Responsible Influence that the ARPP created in September 2021, intended for all content creators working with brands. This “generalist” label has already been obtained by more than 700 influencers, including figures in the sector such as the former Miss France Iris Mittenaere or the traveler Bruno Maltor. Two “mega-influencers” according to the ARPP ranking, a category which brings together those who exceed 500,000 subscribers on social networks.
This supervision, however, remains limited in view of the deviations observed. According to the Responsible Influence Observatory, more than a quarter of the content published by influencers in 2020 did not clearly indicate that it was a commercial partnership. Even more serious: according to a survey by the Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF), six out of ten influencers did not comply with regulations on advertising and consumer rights.
For athletes, this label intends to clarify a gesture that has become commonplace, that of posting a photo of free sports clothing, or filming a training session with a product visible on the screen. To obtain certification, athletes must complete four hours of training on the legal and ethical rules governing these collaborations. Once the training has been validated, the athlete will be listed in the ARPP certified profiles. A distinction that he can highlight in his profile on his social networks to give confidence to brands and his subscribers.
