56 July 2022 FourFourTwo
“the design of their team’s kit, the squad
number for new signings, stadium celebration
songs,” their spokesperson tells FFT. And the
other rewards? Hospitality tickets to games
are the major one, plus “we’ve had fans take
over matchday announcer duties, ask the
manager questions in press conferences”, as
well as play-at-the-stadium events and, yes,
NFTs. “We know we can do more, and we’re
working with our club partners to increase
the scope of both our polls and rewards.”The fan pushback has been intense in
places. West Ham ended their deal after
a supporter outcry in 2020. Crystal Palace
supporters’ group Holmesdale Fanatics
whipped up a banner: ‘Morally Bankrupt
Parasites, Socios Not Welcome’. And Leeds
United Supporters’ Trust (LUST) went high-
concept, after denouncing the Whites’ own
Socios deal. On April 1, they announced their
own NFT, the memorably named $LUST.
The April Fool fallout was suitably confused.Quantocoin currency, they announced
a lofty goal: “This is transparency in football
and we are looking to reduce corruption.”
A bit ambitious, but the crypto concept
was initially a reaction against the traditional
banking that had just caused a global
recession. The various digital currencies –
most famously, bitcoin – were invented to
bypass the global finance middle man; a bit
like how MP3s shafted the music industry
when everyone shared stuff illegally on
Napster. Bitcoin self governs, though, with
every transaction logged in a database:
the aforementioned blockchain is a bit like
an old-fashioned accounts book, but gets
shared on numerous computer systems.
So it’s not easy to fiddle.
“It’s very hard to commit a crime with
bitcoin because there’s an open ledger,” says
McCormack – although he’s less convinced
that crypto will clean up football. “If you’re
corrupt, you’ll always find ways to be corrupt.”
Trading in crypto has made lots of people
lots of proper money, via savvy trading as
rates rise and fall. And where there’s wads
of cash, football clubs inevitably wade in.
It’s been tentative until recently – usually
just publicity stunts for new crypto sponsors:
Southampton are paying their players’
bonuses in bitcoin, for example. But then
NFTs took off – sports ones are projected
to make $2 billion this year – and the clubs
collectively took notice.
“Football has to do something different as
an industry to bring its sponsorship values
in,” says Rob Wilson. With tobacco, alcohol
and gambling ads all now all banned or
curtailed, “the next big sector seems to
be cryptocurrency and digital currencies”.
NFT stands for non-fungible token: it’s
basically a unique digital widget, often just
a picture or video clip. For NFT fans, collecting
them is a thrilling communal experience; for
the uninitiated, it seems like buying a bizarrely
pricey digital image with some vague hope
that its value goes up. And they can be eye-
bogglingly lucrative: in February, an Erling
Haaland NFT sold for $684,000. Or just
embarrassing: Terry’s aforementioned apes
swiftly lost 90 per cent of their value. The
Rangers- and Hibernian-linked NFT providers
Sportemon Go collapsed in early May, and
even Liverpool’s official NFT flopped in April,
with five per cent of their randomly generated
‘Hero’ tokens – yours for $75 apiece – shifted
in the first week.
Established blockchain types aren’t huge
fans, either. “NFTs, fan tokens, it’s bollocks –
it’s always about extracting money out of
fans,” says Bedford’s McCormack. “If I did
a fan token, well, I’d be f**ked. My podcast
would be over.”
They do seem popular elsewhere, though.
Most Premier League clubs have now linked
up with Socios, the company that recently
signed Lionel Messi for a cool $20m. Fans
swap their pounds for cryptocurrency Chiliz,
then buy fan tokens – not NFTs, as these
tokens aren’t unique – which give you access
to rewards and a vote on club stuff.
According to Socios, they’re aiming for 500
fan polls in 2022, with supporters voting on
CRYPTO
“THE nEXT BIG SECTOR In
FOOTBALL SPOnSORSHIP
APPEARS TO BE DIGITAL
AnD CRYPTOCURREnCIES”
Clockwise from
top Palace fans
protest Socios’
involvement;
Terry’s failed
NFT; McCormack
basks in his new
Bedford threads