When Paris Saint-Germain signed Lionel Messi, the salary package included something previously unheard of for a player — a one-off payment, understood to be worth around one million euros, made in PSG ‘fan tokens’.
It was the result of a partnership signed by the French giants in 2018 with Socios, a website that sees fans use a cryptocurrency called ‘chiliz’ to buy tokens allowing them to vote on issues related to the club.
These issues have tended to be rather mundane. For example, Juventus asking what music they should play in their stadium. But the concept has caught on.
The company has grown quickly since signing its first partnerships with PSG and Juventus. Today, it’s involved with 56 football clubs and around 100 sports teams worldwide, said CEO Alexandre Dreyfus.
Messi has brought more publicity, and Dreyfus believes the Argentinian will “set a trend”. Chiliz shot up 58 per cent in the four weeks after Messi’s arrival.
They now have shirt sponsorship deals, with Inter Milan and Valencia promoting their fan tokens.
A mini-revolution
There is a mini-revolution brewing as businesses related to cryptocurrency have started appearing on shirts.
In July, AS Roma announced a three-year deal worth $14 million annually that sees their shirts carry the name of DigitalBits, “an easy-to-use open-source blockchain used to power consumer digital assets”.
The emergence of cryptorelated businesses in football comes even as countries are introducing regulation to clamp down on gambling sponsorship — a ban is in place in Spain, for example, while the UK government is considering one.
“Something has to fill the void and fan tokens, or something which is not defined as gambling but is gambling, is likely to be the big ticket in town,” Kieran Maguire, a lecturer in football finance at Liverpool University, UK, said.
