Paris Saint-Germain, one of the world’s wealthiest football clubs, is launching its own cryptocurrency. According to the news, the French soccer giant will launch a token that aims to incentivize its supporters over a blockchain. The project is an initiative between the French Ligue 1, Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) and the blockchain company Socios.com.
Paris Saint-Germain, also known as PSG, is a French professional football club based in the French capital Paris. The club, founded in 1970, comes out in the Ligue 1 and plays its home games at Parc des Princes. The club is owned and bankrolled by a Qatar state investment firm, making it financially very wealthy.
The French champions shattered the world transfer record when they signed Neymar from Barcelona for £198million one year ago. But off the field, PSG is also looking to make a lasting impact. This time by developing an innovative blockchain strategy that will put its fans at the heart of its engagement. Fans are being encouraged to snap up the world’s first Fan Token Offering (FTO) which they can cash in for exclusive rewards and experiences.
The company building the blockchain is Socios. Socios describes itself as a digitized, tokenized form of the “Socios” crowd-management concept of Real Madrid & FC Barcelona — “socios” means member or associate in Spanish. The platform is powered by a sports blockchain venture dubbed chiliZ, which has the backing of high profile crypto industry players that include crypto exchange Binance. ChiliZ has raised $66 million in funding to date, according to sources.
Speaking to CCN, Chilliz CEO Alex Dreyfus explained that the platform was looking forward to furthering collaboration with other top soccer clubs.
“We are focusing on onboarding the biggest clubs in Europe and in the coming weeks, we will announce other big clubs who will also be joining our platform. Outside of France, our priority is clubs in the UK, Italy, Spain and Germany.”
With the platform, PSG’s partnership will allow the club to launch a Fan Token Offering (FTO) that gives fans access to branded Saint German club tokens which come with voting rights and can also confer VIP status and/or rewards to their holders. Fans will reportedly be able to vote on “cosmetic” decisions (choosing the club’s jersey color, stadium music, and logo) and certain sports aspects (MVP, Player of the Match or Month, friendlies matches, summer tours, charity line-ups, etc).
