Kerma Games Lands Luka Modrić: Football’s Last Legend Enters the Casino World

Key Points

• Modrić joins Kerma Games as the Brand Ambassador and Celebrity IP Partner, being the first sports star among a roster consisting exclusively of music stars until now.
• The announcement came only one week after the club AC Milan announced his contract renewal until June 2027.
• The title “Celebrity IP Partner” indicates that his name/image will be included in the casino game names.

Seven days after agreeing to his new contract at San Siro, Luka Modrić was already on to the next phase of his career.

On July 23, 2026, the Italian football club AC Milan revealed that the team’s captain would stay with the club until June 30, 2027, putting to rest speculations surrounding his retirement from international football following the FIFA World Cup of 2026. Exactly one week later, Kerma Games revealed that it had signed Luka Modrić as its Brand Ambassador and Celebrity IP Partner, both designations exclusive to any current Kerma Games studio member.

Timing is an important issue here. Kerma Games did not make the information about the deal public until after they had confirmation of the deal, which was undoubtedly a clear indication that they were keen on having certainty over Modrić’s football future before making such a long-term commitment.

Why ‘Celebrity IP Partner’ Is the More Significant Title?

Most brand ambassador deals in the iGaming space amount to licensing an athlete’s face for promotional materials. The additional designation of Celebrity IP Partner suggests something more structural.

Tribuna noted that the wording “hints that the player’s name and image will feature in the studio’s titles.” Kerma Games has used this same IP integration model with all three of its current celebrity partners: Snoop Dogg’s collaboration produced Dogg Air, Crazy Dogg Cross and Snoop Dogg Blackjack; Lil Baby’s resulted in Lil Baby Blackjack and Lil Baby Street Dice; and Sexyy Red also features in the portfolio. A Modrić-branded title looks probable, though Kerma confirmed only that “further details regarding Luka Modrić gaming experiences, content initiatives and upcoming collaborations will be announced in the coming months.”

The First Athlete in a Music-Heavy Lineup

Until this week, every celebrity Kerma Games had signed came from the same world: American hip-hop. Modrić is the first athlete and the first non-American personality to join the roster. That expansion is deliberate.

iGaming Business confirmed Kerma’s official position: the signing represents “the company’s first major move into international sport and a natural evolution of its celebrity IP strategy.” However, football has an audience level which music, no matter how wide its range, cannot achieve. Football has fans across billions of people in places where Kerma is operational; Modric, whose career has spanned decades in clubs like Tottenham, Real Madrid, and now AC Milan, is not something that many athletes can say about themselves.

Hopper Zappitello, Kerma Games Partnerships Manager, said: “Luka is one of the most respected athletes in the world and a person whose influence goes much further than just football. With his professionalism, longevity and appeal all over the world, he’s the perfect addition to Kerma Games’ portfolio. We’re really pleased to have Luka join us as a Brand Ambassador.”

The following is how Modrić responded to this move: “I am very excited about being able to join Kerma Games and become a part of a project that combines sports, entertainment and games in a brand new way. They have developed an excellent list of worldwide players, and I am very proud to join them.”

The Man Behind the Deal: Modrić at 40

Any studio signing a 40-year-old athlete as an IP partner is betting on legacy, not current stardom. In Modrić’s case, that bet looks reasonably safe.

His 200th appearance for the Croatia national team was during the 2026 FIFA World Cup, becoming one of the few outfield players to accomplish this feat on an international platform. At Real Madrid, his club records included 597 appearances and 28 trophies in 13 years with six UEFA Champions League titles. At AC Milan, he appeared in 37 matches, scoring two goals and three assists as they ended up fifth in Serie A, missing out on a Champions League spot by just a point.

The defeat for Croatia in the round of 32 against Portugal put an end to his World Cup campaign, although the milestone of achieving a 200th cap has been registered. The sight of Modrić during the 2026 FIFA World Cup at the age of 40 as a captain would be the perfect theme for any gaming studio to make a game narrative.

Kerma’s Broader Push: Three Major Deals in Weeks

The Modrić announcement arrives at the end of a stretch in which Kerma Games has moved quickly across multiple fronts.

In June 2026, the studio secured an aggregation deal with Alea, putting its slots, live casino and crash games in front of Alea’s operator network. Kerma stated at the time it planned to release four new games per month across its verticals, with additional celebrity announcements “expected in the near future.” That language, in retrospect, likely referenced the Modrić deal already in progress.

Just earlier that month, Kerma Games had launched its own crypto casino via a collaboration with Dustbit, which would become the first crypto casino to distribute its games. Their launching game was Snoop Olympus, an innovative slot themed around Snoop Dogg’s mythology-inspired character.

It is through such initiatives that Kerma Games is growing in distribution, acquiring more celebrities, and venturing into the sports realm for the first time. The pace suggests Kerma Games is in an active growth phase, not a gradual rollout.

Simone Bacchin, Head of Sales at Kerma Games, had already framed the studio’s philosophy bluntly when commenting on the Alea deal: “The industry doesn’t need more games. It needs experiences players actually remember.”

Expert Analysis: Sport Changes the Audience Equation

Kerma’s pivot from music to sport is not simply a preference shift; it is a market calculation. Music IP, particularly in hip-hop, skews toward a specific demographic. In addition, football as well as an individual such as Modrić, who is a household name in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America, means that the pool of players is substantially increased. In the regulated environments where these operators operate, there is no escaping the problem of packed lobbies, costly customer acquisition and poor retention.

A studio that can deliver a recognisable personality embedded directly into a game, rather than simply stamped onto a banner ad, offers something measurably different. The question that remains unanswered is whether Kerma Games can execute on the Modrić IP at the same quality level as its Snoop Dogg titles, and whether a football audience, which skews toward sports betting, will engage meaningfully with a casino slot. The announcement was deliberately open-ended on product specifics. What the next few months reveal about the Modrić game will be the real measure of whether this partnership delivers on its commercial promise.