Skip to main content

Crypto could be a rip off for fans

Financial Times columnist Chris Cook has launched an onslaught on the bromance of football clubs with crypto, saying that it is time they stopped playing with it.

Football author Martin Callandine told the Pink 'Un: 'fans outsource some of their judgement to their team's commercial department.  And that's dangerous when clubs are endorsing unregulated products with no consumer protection.'   Terms like 'investment' and 'trading' are used in relation to crypto, but with none of the normally safeguards that apply to them.

Last November Manchester City signed a marketing partnership with crypto company 3Key.  This was justified by the usual marketing patter, but a week later City said that the partnership was suspended while they conducted further inquiries (which they should surely have made in the first place).

Southampton has been promoting learn-crypto.com, a site aimed at beginners.   My general view is that if sounds too good to be true it probably is and never invest in anything you don't understand.

Easy crypto-marketing clubs looks attractive to financially challenged clubs.  Cook says: 'if nothing changes, a financial disaster for fans and a PR disaster for clubs is likely to ensue.  Clubs will be blamed.  And they might end up with an even tougher regulator breathing down their necks.'

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

It's no deal say Spurs insiders over Taiwanese takeover

Senior figures at Tottenham Hotspur insisted on Friday that they had not been informed of any deal to sell Daniel Levy’s stake in the club. A business group, Eight Sports Capital — which is said to include a billionaire Taiwanese financier — claimed that it had an agreement in place to buy a 24.99 per cent stake in ENIC, the club’s majority owners, from Levy, who owns 29.88 per cent. The Times has been told Ng Wing Fai and Brooklyn Earick form part of the group, having both been linked previously to potential takeovers of the Premier League club. The Taiwanese businessman, Richard Tsai, is also said to be part of the consortium. He is reportedly worth £7 billion.  Last year Earick, the former DJ and tech entrepreneur, was part of an attempted £4.5 billion takeover, which was “unequivocally rejected” by Spurs.  An ENIC spokesperson said: “We can confirm that neither ENIC nor THFC are aware of any sale by Daniel Levy’s Family Trust of its minority stake in ENIC, THFC’...

Reports about Charlton sale exaggerated

Reports have appeared in The Guardian and elsewhere that Charlton has been put up for sale. Richard Cawley is an authoritative local journalist who runs a South London Sport substack site.  He reached out to the club yesterday evening to ask for comment on The Guardian’s article. Early indications from the club have been that nothing has changed since the story about them seeking investment, except that it is now a different company doing it. Charlton have since managed to consolidate their place in the Championship, avoiding an instant return to League One, with their women’s side promoted to the WSL, returning to the top flight for the first time since 2007, although staying there is likely to be costly. It would be counter-intuitive for owners Global Football Partners not to progress the club when looking for investment, that the focus remains on driving it forward, that their spend this summer is in line with long-term planning and will see an increase in wages spent on players...

Hull City's 'strange' loan

When football finance guru Kieran Maguire seems flashing lights in a club's loan deal, I become concerned.  He is the leading football finance expert in the UK. Hull City have borrowed £55m against their stadium and training ground yet they should get £30m from the Premier League before long.  What is going on? https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cpwel48y51do