FourFourTwo July 2022 57“I think Leeds were one of the only clubs
not to sell out the tokens at launch,” says
Willerton of the Socios deal, “which I’d like
to think was down to our campaign.”
Are Socios aware of the backlash? Either
way, their project has “a global community
of over 1.5m users who have embraced
Socios.com,” their spokesperson says, “but
we recognise this is a new product, using
new technology, and know we need to do
more to ensure people fully understand
what we’re all about and what drives us.”THE YOUTH OF TODAY
The other argument for (or, indeed, against)
NFTs and their ilk is that they bring new folks
to football. Fan tokens are especially popular
in the US, Asia and eastern Europe, and – as
Rob Wilson points out – there’s a worry that
younger people aren’t watching full games
anymore. Gambling was interactive, if hardly
positive; this could be another.
“I think there’s an argument to say new
revenue generation is critical for the ongoing
evolution of football clubs,” he says. “AndIn December, meanwhile, the Advertising
Standards Authority banned two adverts for
Arsenal’s $AFC fan token, claiming the club
was misleading fans over the risks associated
with cryptocurrencies. In the ASA’s words, it
“trivialised investment in cryptoassets”.
It’s a very tricky business. Leeds recently
launched an NFT fundraiser for Ukraine but
even that sparked a hefty outcry. The LUST’s
main concern is that fans will eventually feel
guilt-tripped into joining the crypto world.“Most people saw through the prank,” says
LUST secretary Adam Willerton, “but we did
get a few angry responses along the lines of,
‘Are you saying that those fans with the most
money get the most say in club matters?’
Which is exactly what we were saying! We
had one crypto investor who didn’t appear
to have any interest in football, asking where
he could buy these tokens – despite the fact
that we’d already revealed it was a joke.”
The crossovers continue. Liverpool are said
to be mooting a crypto shirt sponsor, and
Barcelona’s once-pure jerseys came close to
plugging the blockchain network Polkadot
for next season. You can tell this is a virtual
world, as Manchester United actually did
a better deal than Manchester City, says
Rob Wilson.
United hooked up with the blockchain
network Tezos, “a smart move, because it
keeps them out of the coins going up and
down,” he says, “versus Manchester City,
where they did that deal with somebody
that didn’t actually exist.” That was 3Key,
a crypto company that no one could find any
actual record of; City swiftly backtracked.
Above Arsenal’s
$AFC fan token
ad was banned
by the ASACRYPTO