58 July 2022 FourFourTwo
crypto, NFT and fan tokens are kind of the
next generation. It’s also a generation that
young people are actively engaged with.”
That’s either positive or scary, depending
on your point of view. Not all digital currency
investors are targeting big clubs and their
fans, of course: McCormack’s vision for
Bedford sounds fairly down to earth, now
he’s past those difficult early days when
the whole coaching staff left. Did he go full
Souness-at-Liverpool, too much too soon?
“No, I just think I was a loudmouth,” he
admits. “Saying, ‘We’re gonna get in the
Premier League, we’re gonna get promoted
this year, we’ve got loads of money, nobody
else has got any...’ Like a dickhead. So now
it’s like, ‘OK, step back. How do we actually
do this?’ Look, we’ve got a plan for next
season. I’m confident we’ll win the league.”
McCormack’s longer-term plan involves
a bitcoin treasury – money in the bank,
basically. But it being bitcoin, he’s confident
its value will rise, and by the time Bedford
are challenging for League status, they’ll
have a big war chest to work with. He won’t
have enjoyed the early headlines from May,
then, when it was revealed that the value
of bitcoin had crashed to its lowest level in
2022, down more than 50 per cent from
its all-time high. Across four days, some
$300bn was obliterated from the value of
cryptocurrencies, in a wider market slump.
Still, one touchstone for Bedford is Forest
Green Rovers, recently promoted to League
One. “They’re a vegan club but you don’t
have to be a vegan to go and watch them –
nor do you have to buy bitcoin to watch us,”
he says. “Bitcoiners like paying with bitcoin,
they like the novelty of it – so if someone
wants to buy their beer or burger with it, of
course we’ll let them. But when people turn
up, it’s not like, ‘Bitcoin everywhere! Do you
want to learn about bitcoin payment?’ We’re
not that. Most people don’t give a st.”
Current bitcoiners may well jump aboard:
they’ve apparently spent tens of thousands
on Bedford FC merch already. “For a tier 10
team that’s unbelievable,” says the chairman.
“I went to the Bitcoin Conference in Miami
a few weeks ago, I’m wandering around and
there are people wearing a T-shirt that just
says ‘Bedford’ on it. It fking kills me.”
If McCormack is essentially just a local
entrepreneur buying his hometown club,
what does he make of the US NFT company,
WAGMI United, buying Crawley?
“That’s going to be a s**tshow,” he says.
“Crawley has a long history and a good
fanbase. And I hope they don’t kill that.”
The deal did sound slightly random, given
that WAGMI tried (and failed) to buy Bradford
City in December 2021. But how are the fans
feeling? “Pretty optimistic, to be honest,”
says Sam Jordan, Crawley’s Supporters’ Trust
chairman. “We’ve been pretty happy with
how transparent they’ve been.”
That’s one irony with crypto types: they’re
often social media-friendly, so less cryptic
than previous owners. “How many football
fans know where the money comes from to
fund their clubs anyway?” ponders Jordan.
“No one really knows.”
WAGMI’s main face, Preston Johnson,
certainly isn’t your old-school club director,
all trucker cap and bluesy beard – but he’s
been saying the right things. Rather than sell
NFTs to Crawley fans, for example, they plan
to pitch the club to existing NFT enthusiasts.
Jordan approves. “The big thing for us is
that we want to grow the fanbase,” he says- but within reason. Attracting a big new
global audience is one thing, but these NFT
offers often include voting rights, too, which
could be problematic. Will a new US-based
NFT holder “have more of a say than the
60-year-old guy who’s been for the past 30
years and goes to every game?” he wonders.
Choosing a new away kit is one thing, but
there are others that fans shouldn’t vote on.
Such as, “If you’ve lost the previous five
matches, ‘Should we sack the manager?’”
Jordan suggests. “Football fans can be very
emotional. After a game, if that comes up,
you’re going to vote yes.”
Fan polls can be dangerous. Remember the
great vote-rigging scandals of 2003? Rival
fans reportedly hijacked club polls and a)
made Mike Newell the new Luton Town boss,
and b) got Manchester City to name a stand
after Colin Bell: The Bell End. Heady days.
Socios suggest that their token-voting system
solves such problems, due to the blockchain
tech (“that’s not the case with social media
voting”) – but the debate about whether
tokens for votes should exist will rumble on.
Still, a new team in Thailand, Futera United,
is using fan NFTs to decide on actual tactics.
Formed by the trading card company Futera,
United have just begun their first season in
Bangkok Premier League Division 4. Rather
than take NFTs to an existing team, they
started their own to avoid any aggro with
fans. Not that it’s been easy. “There’s a few
of us that haven’t slept for a year, probably,”
laughs Futera Digital’s Adam Trinder.
The company sponsor an academy in
Thailand already, so had coaches in place.
It’s a novel proposition for aspiring players,
too: games streamed globally, their own
NFTs and trading cards potentially, even if
they’re currently crypto clueless. “We gave
a day’s notice for the trial,” says Trinder,
“and there were about 150 players there.”
Fans deciding tactics, though? It’s been
tried before – hello, Ebbsfleet United – but
the whole point of Futera United is NFT
interactions, so the coaches can hardly
complain. The blockchain tech also helps
alleviate Bell End-style hijacks, says Trinder.
“You connect your [digital] wallet, it sees
that you own it. And then that gives you
your voting power.” So, no opposition fans
sticking your keeper upfront halfway through
the cup final. Hopefully.
Win or lose, it’s an intriguing experiment,
and trading cards make for an interesting
comparison. NFTs and fan tokens may have
“no real intrinsic value”, as Crystal Palace
chairman Steve Parish recently admitted, but
then neither did the physical stuff we wasted
money on, when you think about it. We can
all remember buying 10 packs of stickers to
find that one Ipswich badge we needed.
“It’s exactly the same,” says Rob Wilson.
“We collected Panini stickers, these young
people collect NFTs. They’re very quickly
accessible and they can be rare. They can
be low cost to get involved with.”
The difference is the boom-and-bust
nature of NFTs, which can leave fans out of
pocket. Governments are keen to start taxing
such things, Wilson suggests, and when “they
get the regulatory processes in place, we’ll
probably start to see a reduction in value.”
Then again, they haven’t managed it yet.
Crypto prices might continue to soar and
swoop, bitcoin could climb or crash, and Real
Bedford will wind up as a Champions League
side. So, why that name?
“When Beckham did Inter Miami, I was like,
‘F**k it, we’re gonna be Real Bedford’,” smiles
McCormack. “Maybe one day we’ll play Real
Madrid. You never know.”CRYPTO
Top Bangkok’s
Futera United
are letting their
NFT owners
decide tactics
Above Futera’s
trading cards“FOREST GREEn ARE A VEGAn
CLUB BUT YOU DOn’T HAVE TO BE
OnE TO WATCH THEM – nOR DO
YOU nEED BITCOIn TO WATCH US”