World-famous soccer player Lionel Messi has signed a long-term agreement worth $20M with a platform, named fan token platform Socios. In the past year, many sports personalities from North America such as Tom Brady, Odell Beckham, and Steph Curry have signed new agreements with different companies, now Lionel Messi’s entry into the crypto market with an agreement is the latest news. Lionel Messi made a splash the previous August by moving from Barcelona club to Paris Saint-German.
This agreement included limited crypto token payments in PSG fan tokens, which were created by Socios in cooperation with the club. The role of football clubs of Europe has been very important in the initial growth of Socios, with many teams like Juventus and Manchester City are joining in. It has been a competitive place, but Socios has occupied comparatively a dominant position. Lionel Messi will be Socios’s ambassador for three years, but reportedly, crypto payments are not included in this agreement.
PSG is one of the 100 international clubs that have agreed with Socios right from their beginning, and many people think that fan tokens can be used to attract fans at a large scale in a way like never happened before-few concerns have been seen regarding fan token activity as well. Many critics think that the probable level of fan commitment is just trivial and not able to spend, it only increases the price of fandom.
British regulatory authorities imposed a ban on Premier League club Arsenal for promoting fan tokens in Dec. of the previous year, according to authorities it is against the advertisement rules. According to the regulators of the country, the team was taking benefits of customers’ imperfections in crypto. Particularly Socios has also faced challenges.
At the beginning of this month, the company was charged with cost manipulation, with a few reports were presented that Chief Executive Officer withheld CHZ token payments to staff to keep costs lasting. The space has potential definitely, but using fan tokens accurately and sensibly, and adding value for fans would be the main issue to overcome- and this will be different from game to game.
James Thompson