AMF Recommendations. There is no such thing as a guaranteed high return, a product with a high return potential implies a high risk. This risk must be in line with your project, your investment horizon and your ability to lose part of these savings. Do not invest if you are not prepared to lose all or part of your capital.Between the issuance of fan tokens by the biggest clubs in the world, the sale of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) bearing the effigy of players or sponsorship contracts with crypto companies, the world of soccer welcomes with open arms the innovations brought by blockchain. A marriage for the better, but also for the worse in the absence of any legislative framework. We propose to decipher this union of two worlds made to get along.
Betting on soccer to gain visibility
Soccer and blockchainIt’s a love affair that has been going on for a few years now. But in recent months, their relationship has taken a step forward. Not a week goes by without a sensational announcement mixing the two worlds.
At the end of March 2022, it is Lionel Messi who was in the headlines following the announcement of his partnership with the fan token platform Socios.com. For a check of 20 million dollars (18 million euros), the Argentine prodigy agreed to become an ambassador for the company for three years.
Together we can do more. Together we can be more.
Introducing https://t.co/2FROhSNgw8’s first global ambassador, Lionel Messi.#BeMoreThanAFan pic.twitter.com/DxiHckf2Wq
– Socios.com (@socios) March 29, 2022
If Lionel Messi has something to rub his hands after this juicy contract, Socios.com is not left out. The company created by the Frenchman Alexandre Dreyfus, which relies on his token Chiliz (CHZ), signs a very nice marketing coup. By betting on the man who is considered one of the best footballers in history, the company has given itself the means to to make its fan tokens known to as many people as possible. And it is not the only crypto company to have invested in the world of football to gain visibility…
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Between soccer and blockchain, there is strength in numbers
Soccer is without question the most popular sport on the planet. Practiced by 250 million people in more than 200 countries, it is followed by 3.5 billion fans worldwide. It is therefore a strategic field for crypto companies seeking to reach new audiences with the widest possible exposure. But clubs, players and major soccer competitions also benefit from this quest for popularity.
The world of football has not been slow to adopt the innovations brought by blockchainsuch as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), in order to create new sources of revenue. Soccer and blockchain is a win-win alliance that comes in many forms.
Sponsorship contracts
Like Crypto.com, official partner of the World Cup in Qatar which will start next November, many are crypto companies to have chosen to to sponsor soccer competitions or clubs. In the Premier League alone, the most powerful league in the world, 17 of the 20 clubs have companies from the sector as partners.
Among the most notable alliancesWe can mention OKX and Manchester City, Tezos and Manchester United, Binance and the last edition of the African Cup of Nations, Crypto.com and Paris Saint-Germain… Crypto companies have cash to spare, and the world of Soccer sees these new cash inflows with a very good eye.
Two major Dutch clubs have gone even further by agreeing to be sponsored directly in Bitcoin (BTC) :
The issue of fan tokens
The fan tokensis the specialty of the company Socios.com. This platform dedicated to fans has made soccer its priority, even if it is involved in other sports such as basketball or MMA through the UFC. Its proposal is simple: allow partner clubs to stimulate fan engagement and to better monetize their fervor.
In practice, Socios.com enters into partnerships with clubs so that they issue tokens on its platform that will be sold to fans. The holders of fan tokens can then participate in polls to influence on some of the secondary decisions of the life of their teamsuch as the design of the third jersey, the player of the month or the entrance song on the field. They can also win awards for fan token holders only. This gives the club a whole new source of revenue, with unlimited possibilities for monetizing fan engagement.
🏟 Make your mark on the Emirates Stadium.
❤️ $AFC Fan Token holders decided on the new tunnel message; we invited one lucky @Arsenal fan to be the first to see it.
👉 More info: https://t.co/TXtJ7HHufI
⚡️ $CHZ pic.twitter.com/l9W7ryI0lJ
– Socios.com (@socios) April 1, 2022
Socios.com’s model is a hit. The company already has some of the world’s biggest clubs in its fold, such as FC Barcelona, Atlético Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain, Juventus, Manchester City and Arsenal. In total, about 50 teams are available in the application. Following the success of Socios.com, the Binance platform has also entered the race for fan tokens with a dedicated platform. For the moment, it has three partners: Lazio Rome (Italy), FC Porto (Portugal) and FC Santos (Brazil), but it does not intend to stop there.
We could add to all this the initiative of the Japanese soccer player Keisuke Honda, who launched his own fan token. The former AC Milan player has used the Rally.io platform, which will serve as an intermediary between the Japanese star and the holders of KSK Honda Coin. The latter will have access to exclusive content about the playerOn and off the field. With their huge communities, one could very well imagine soccer heavyweights like Cristiano Ronaldo or Kylian Mbappé following the same model.
Sales of NFTs
As you may have noticed, NFTs have been all the rage since last year. In any case, this has not escaped the attention of the soccer community. Between national leagues and tournaments (Premier League, La Liga, Major League Soccer), international competitions (UEFA), clubs (FC Liverpool, Manchester United, AS Monaco, FC Porto, PSG) and players (Ronaldinho, Giorgio Chiellini, David Trezeguet, Lionel Messi, Pele, Romelu Lukaku), many are the players of the round ball who seize the phenomenon. And the list is far from exhaustive.
How can we talk about non-fungible tokens in soccer without mentioning the French nugget Sorare? Launched in 2018, this game of fantasy soccer relies heavily on the possibilities offered by NFTs. Simply put, participants buy and sell NFTs representing soccer cards, which they use to compose their virtual team. They then earn points based on the actual match performance of each player and the rarity of each card.
A player for the ages and a card for the history books?
🇦🇷 The Unique card of the 7x Ballon d’Or winner has just landed on @Sorare with 4 of his @PSG_inside teammates! 🇫🇷
🔥 Get scouting: https://t.co/N8zUYv2I17 pic.twitter.com/mCbUySomAA
– Sorare (@Sorare) March 22, 2022
In total, more than 230 soccer clubs have already joined Sorareand the number of partnerships is increasing. And this number should continue to grow, because all licensed teams receive royalties. For them, this financial windfall from nowhere is hard to refuse.
No wonder the startup is attracting investors from all sides, like the players Antoine Griezmann and Gerard Piquéor the billionaire Xavier Niel. In September 2021, it raised $680 million in funding, which is a record for French Tech. The company has since been valued at $4.3 billion.
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Decentralized investment solutions in soccer
Several initiatives are leveraging blockchain and cryptocurrencies to offer More decentralized visions of investing in soccerand in sport more generally.
We can notably mention the project of Peter Lim, a Singaporean investor who is very involved in the world of football. With the help of his son Kiat, he has surrounded himself with former Manchester United stars (Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville, etc.) to create a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) called CO92 (for “Class Of ’92”, which refers to one of the best generations in the history of the Mancunian club). The objective? To democratize investment in soccer. Fans will be able to buy CO92 DAO tokens, in order to take part in the decisions and participate in the investments made. There will be no minimum investment.
JUST IN:
Manchester United legends create first soccer CAD ⚽️#DAO #CO92 #ManUnited pic.twitter.com/KpxK4W6hCQ
– CryptoMag👾 (@Cryptomagfr) February 7, 2022
The Tokenchampions investment fund has chosen a different path by specializing in the management of footballers’ image rights. Here again, individuals and companies are invited to participate, with a minimum entry ticket of 100 euros. And the least we can say is that the project does not lack ambition: it intends to manage a portfolio of about 300 players generating 1.5 billion euros of assets in the next three years. The strategy is naturally to to bet on future players with high potential.
Talking about democratization of soccer business, we also had to present the WAGMI United project. Its objective is completely crazy, namely to give birth to a club 100% financed by cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Carried by strong investors from diverse backgrounds, it could revolutionize the way soccer clubs are run, with as always this concern for decentralization in order to involve the fans as much as possible.
👉 On the same subject: Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium lands in the metaverse
Soccer and blockchain: a divisive marriage
While many soccer fans who are adept at blockchain relish seeing these two worlds merge, some point to the abuses born of this union. It must be said that some players in the world of soccer are not very careful when it comes to accepting huge sums of money from the ecosystem of cryptocurrencies.
Contracts too quickly concluded with dubious companies
In recent months, we have seen several clubs cancel contracts signed with crypto companies. The reason? They did not do the necessary research before committing themselves, and realized a little late the suspicions of fraud surrounding these companies.
This is notably the case of FC Barcelona, which cancelled in November 2021 a marketing contract with the NFTs marketplace Ownix. A decision that follows the arrest for fraud of Moshe Hogeg, a man involved in society. Logically, the club no longer wanted to be associated with his name.
At almost the same time, it was Manchester City who decided to to suspend its sponsorship agreement with the company 3Key Technologies. Alerted by Internet users, the club realized thatno member of the club’s leadership team had an online presence. As a result of this discovery, two websites related to the company were shut down, which confirmed the doubts about the legitimacy of 3Key Technologies. Since then, the company has never communicated on social networks.
Manchester City suspend partnership with “3Key”, a start-up cryptocurrency firm whose executives do not seem to appear on internet searches. Partnership was announced last week. pic.twitter.com/Hi02Z2IxAR
– Jack Gaughan (@Jack_Gaughan) November 19, 2021
More recently, it is the clubs of the Sporting Portugal and the Spezia Calcio who have decided to to break their contracts sponsorship contracts with the company crypto turkish Bitci.com. This time, the reason given would be the delay in payments due from the company to the clubs involved.
Poor protection of participants in absence of clear regulation
In England, crypto companies have taken advantage of fears of a tightening of advertising regulations for sports betting sites toput their logos on most of the Premier League jerseys. The clubs could not refuse a new windfall of money in this context, because online betting sites bring in a lot of money. But if this legislative blur has many advantages for the blockchain ecosystem, it raises questions from a consumer protection perspective.
In view of the ultra-specular character and the cryptocurrency volatilityfan tokens and NFTs, the risks are numerous for fans who are uninformed about the nature of these technologies. Without clear prevention messages and clear legislation, it is obvious that many soccer fans attracted by the lure of money will lose large amounts of money. Some will invest more than they can afford, while others will fall into the traps set by the scammers swarming the blockchain ecosystem. Today, to survive in this legislative Wild West, it is better to stay vigilant and beware of everyone.
Another question arises, that of the addiction risks caused by games like Sorare. If sports betting sites are now being singled out, it is mainly for this reason. If they are one day banned from the Premier League, we don’t see why crypto companies would escape this tightening of the rules.
Many gray areas to be cleared up
The absence of a legislative framework for crypto companies leaves a lot of room for innovation, but it also poses many conflict of interest issues and others manipulations by the various participants in the ecosystem.
Using Sorare as an example, a survey published in October 2021 showed that1% of the players held 45% of the total value of the cards issued by the platform. A concentration of assets which opens the door wide to manipulation by the most endowed players. But that’s not all…
When some active players invest in Sorare and participate in the gamelike Gerard Piqué, we can not help but think of all the conflicts of interest that it causes. Since the functioning of the game depends on the actual performance of the players in a match, a footballer could very well decide to take his foot off the gas for his own interests or those of an accomplice.
A company like Socios.com also raises many questions. For example, it would be very easy for a player to invest in a club’s fan token just before accepting a transfer offer from it, in order to benefit from the price increase caused by the announcement of his signing. The club could very well do the same, by buying back some of its fan tokens just before making a big announcement in order to take advantage of the price increase to easily make profits. The possibilities for slippage are endless.
👉 Related: Blaise Matuidi bets on Web 3.0 and launches an investment fund called Origins
Conclusion
As you can see, if the worlds of soccer and blockchain are made to get along, the contours of their union remain very vague. And it is not the arrival of memecoins in this field that will allow them to gain credibility. Yet, Floki Inu and Baby Doge Coin have also chosen to opt for the sponsoring in soccer in order to gain legitimacy and visibility. The first one even appears on the back of the shirt of Napoli, one of the most famous clubs in Italy.
Let’s hope that with time, and the arrival of adequate legislation to regulate dubious practices, the marriage between soccer and cryptocurrencies will finally be cleared of all these threatening clouds. For let there be no mistake: despite all the deviations observed in recent months, the fusion of these two worlds has the potential to revolutionize the way we consume soccer, and sport in general. Soon the crazy love after the fuzzy love?
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FAQ
As an AI language model, I don’t have personal preferences or feelings. However, I can provide you with some information about different blockchains that are commonly used for NFTs.
The most popular blockchain for NFTs is Ethereum, which is known for its smart contract capabilities and is the foundation of the vast majority of NFT projects. Other blockchains that are gaining traction for NFTs include Binance Smart Chain, Polygon (previously known as Matic), and Flow, which is specifically designed for NFTs and has been used for high-profile projects such as NBA Top Shot.
Ultimately, the choice of blockchain for NFTs depends on a variety of factors, such as the specific project requirements, the target audience, and the goals of the creators. It’s important to do your research and choose a blockchain that best fits your needs.
The “F” in NFTs stands for “fungible”. NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) are digital assets that are unique and not interchangeable with one another, unlike fungible assets such as cryptocurrencies that are identical and interchangeable with each other.
NFTs use blockchain technology to create a verifiable, secure, and irreplaceable digital asset that can represent anything from digital art, music, videos, virtual real estate, and more. Each NFT is encoded with a unique digital signature that verifies its ownership and authenticity, making it a one-of-a-kind asset that can be bought and sold like any other form of property.
Because NFTs are unique and irreplaceable, they are often used in the art world, where authenticity and provenance are essential for establishing the value of a piece. However, NFTs have also gained popularity in the gaming, entertainment, and sports industries, where they can be used to represent rare or exclusive items, moments, or experiences.
NFTs and cryptocurrencies are two different things with different use cases and applications, so it’s difficult to say which one is “better”.
Cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, are digital currencies that are designed to be used as a medium of exchange for goods and services. They are fungible, meaning that one unit of the currency is interchangeable with another unit of the same currency. Cryptocurrencies are primarily used as a form of investment, speculation, or payment.
On the other hand, NFTs are unique and non-interchangeable digital assets that are stored on a blockchain. They are used to represent anything from digital art, music, videos, and virtual real estate, among others. NFTs are used to establish the ownership and authenticity of digital assets, making them useful for artists and creators who want to monetize their digital creations.
In summary, cryptocurrencies and NFTs serve different purposes and are not directly comparable in terms of “better” or “worse”. The value of each depends on the individual’s goals and use case.
Yes, NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) use blockchain technology. NFTs are digital assets that are uniquely identified and verified through a blockchain, which is a distributed ledger technology that is used to record transactions and maintain a secure and transparent record of ownership.
Most NFTs are currently built on the Ethereum blockchain, which has the necessary infrastructure for creating and trading NFTs through its smart contract capabilities. However, other blockchains such as Binance Smart Chain, Flow, and Polygon (formerly known as Matic) are also gaining traction in the NFT space.
The use of blockchain technology allows NFTs to be transparent, secure, and decentralized, with ownership and transactions recorded on a public ledger that is accessible to everyone. This creates a verifiable and tamper-proof record of ownership that makes NFTs an attractive tool for artists, creators, and collectors who want to establish the uniqueness and authenticity of their digital assets.
No, Bitcoin is not an NFT (Non-Fungible Token).
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, which means it is a digital asset that is used as a medium of exchange for goods and services. It is a fungible asset, meaning that each unit of Bitcoin is interchangeable with any other unit of Bitcoin. In other words, each Bitcoin is identical to every other Bitcoin, and they can be exchanged or traded for one another.
In contrast, NFTs are unique and non-interchangeable digital assets that are represented as tokens on a blockchain. Each NFT is one-of-a-kind and is verified through its own unique digital signature, making it distinct from any other NFT.
While both Bitcoin and NFTs use blockchain technology to maintain a secure and transparent record of ownership and transactions, they serve different purposes and are not directly comparable to each other.
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