How to play Football Index, the world’s football stock market

Know football? Know it well? That'll go a long way.

Football Index is getting bigger and bigger and it's allowing fans of the beautiful game to put their knowledge and their insight to the test, in a bid to make money on what they know. Just like the stock markets, this is now a tradable market on the world's top football players. You can buy shares in footballers and play the long game on their future performance. If you think someone's stock price will increase, you can buy him and cash in whenever you want as you watch the value rise - as long as it does rise. For every footballer on the market, Football Index players can acquire shares at the buying price of each, and they can sell those shares at the sell price, or back to the market. So if you think Alexis Sanchez might be value for money because he's been out injured, he now has a new manager and his performances and clout might grow if he plays anywhere near what he's capable of, then you'd be wise to get shares in him now before everyone's talking about him and everyone starts purchasing them. Sanchez's stock has dropped because... well, he's been shit at United. But an upturn in form and positive attention could see his value grow, where you can then sell him off for profit. He's already got a goal under Olé. Of course, if you get it wrong, you could be purchasing shares in a player whose value will only decrease. If you went for Phil Jones, for example, you'd be stupid.

Like any market, price is driven by supply and demand. When traders buy, the price goes up. When they sell, the price goes down.

And there are now over 2900 players in the game, plenty of ways to make sure you avoid Phil Jones. Dividend Whilst you can play the long game by purchasing shares in a player and wait for the sell price to increase based on his demand, there's also the option of trying to make money on dividends. These are daily payouts on players that perform well in either the media or the pitch.

• The Matchday Dividend ranks players' performances and takes stock of their stats, from shots to clearances, last man tackles to yellow cards to find the highest scoring player in each position on each match day.
• Media Dividends calculates the positive media mentions from selected outlets and awards payouts per share for the top-ranked players in this category.

But if you think you know when a player's fortunes are going to change, if you can spot talent way in advance of the rest, you can be ahead of the game and that's where you can reap the rewards. Honestly though, just steer clear of Phil Jones.

Football Index allows customers to buy & sell shares in the world’s top footballers like commodities on a stock exchange. Traders can earn dividends on both media and Opta powered performance metrics from their portfolio of footballers. The share prices are dictated purely by demand. Sign up here with code JOE to trade £500 risk-free for seven days: www.footballindex.co.uk.

Ts&Cs apply. 18+. New customers only. Please gamble responsibly.