Soccer Fans Need Better Than NFTs

After the best part of two years away from live-soccer matches, football fans deserve better (by football, I mean the older, actual kind.)

Instead, fans are being offered NFTs. The English Premier League, the most popular league in the world, has 20 different clubs; 17 of these clubs have signed deals with “fan token” firms (like Socios, for example). Under such deals, according to The Daily Mail U.K., “clubs now sell digital, tradable club-specific tokens that allow the holders to vote on minor club matters such as the color of the manager’s scarf.” Yes, the color of the manager’s scarf. A matter that occupies the minds of very few, if any, actual football fans. A spokesperson for the Football Supporters Association told the Mail that crypto-based “fan token partnerships are either trying to monetise trivial matters that could easily be solved with online polls of season ticket holders, or inserting financial barriers into genuine supporter engagement.” “Neither,” he believes, “is a good look.” Is he right?

First off, for the uninitiated, NFTs are “non-fungible tokens.” Each “token” represents a digital certificate of authenticity. These digital certificates verify ownership ( a slippery term that we will come to in a bit) of an asset. The tokens, meanwhile, are stored on a digital ledger called a blockchain, meaning records of ownership can’t be forged. NFTs are closely tied to cryptocurrencies.

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