Like many football fans (I have supported Arsenal all my
life), I did not pay too much attention to products being flogged to football
clubs, which, overnight, have become virtually worthless and have cost investors
and football fans billions.
Football clubs deep involvement in Crypto marks a qualitative turning point in the financialisation of every aspect of the game. Financialisation, therefore, must be understood as both a symptom and a strategy of capitalist decline. When profitable real investment opportunities narrow, capital seeks profit in credit, speculation and the privatisation of social assets. This produces recurring crises, debt deflation/inflation cycles, and a growing parasitic layer of finance that extracts from wages, pensions and public budgets.2
As Calladine points out. “What’s concerning about these
deals is that the cryptocurrency market, and the businesses and products based
on it, aren’t substantially different or better regulated than they were when
it destroyed tens of billions of pounds worth of investments in the crash of
2022. If prices crater or the companies go under – whether due to fraud or
simple business failure – fans will have no protection. Despite this, clubs
show no signs of doing any greater due diligence than before, let alone facing
up to their responsibilities as global endorsers and amplifiers of these
schemes.”[1]
The collaboration between professional football and cryptocurrency
is not a “neutral technological development”. It is part of the ongoing process
of capitalism to extract profit from every corner of social life—turning clubs,
players and fans into assets for speculative circuits.
The failed European Super League, stadium renamings, and
corporate sponsorship are expressions of the fact that football and sport in
general are already subordinated to the logic of profit and global finance.[2]
Cryptocurrency is seen as a new revenue stream and leverage point for investors
and hedge funds. Is it really any accident that Hedge funds are buying up so
many football clubs throughout the world?
With costs such as sky-high wage bills, it is little surprising
that clubs turn to crypto, which offers quick inflows of capital, new
monetisation channels (fan tokens, NFTs, club-branded coins), and opportunities
for private equity and Wall Street to monetise fandom.
Beneath the hype of Crypto lies the fact that, rather than
solving clubs' financial problems, they exacerbate them. Crypto does not
suspend the laws of capitalist accumulation. According to the Bank for
International Settlements, highly leveraged actors are increasingly dominating
the global financial system, and opaque markets can spread shocks across the
world economy (BIS warning on financial risks). Crypto markets—volatile,
lightly regulated, and deeply tied to speculative sentiment—fit precisely into
that description. When football clubs hitch their finances to such markets,
they import systemic instability into their operations and the lives of workers
and local communities.
Calladine’s book, while helpful in describing the increasing
use of Crypto to offset clubs' financial problems, does not really tackle the
root cause: capitalism’s search for new profit avenues amid stagnating real
accumulation. Traditional revenue streams—broadcasting, ticketing,
merchandising—are capped. Owners and financiers, therefore, turn to novel
financial instruments: crypto-backed loans, fan-token sales, and fractionalised
ownership. This mirrors the broader turn to non-bank financial institutions and
leverage to absorb sovereign and corporate debt described by the BIS.
What are the implications for workers and fans, stadium
staff, coaches, players below superstar level, and local suppliers? The risks
can be devastating. A sudden crypto crash or a speculative run can produce
abrupt revenue shortfalls, leading to wage cuts, layoffs or bankruptcies.
History shows that sport’s commercialisation produces precarious, low-paid
labour while enriching owners and financiers. Fans are turned into
micro-investors and consumers, pressured to buy tokens or NFTs to access basic
participation, while clubs cede control to distant capital interests.
Speculators can even manipulate events for profit—as in past instances where
market incentives helped produce criminal acts or reckless decisions—exposing
football to the worst pathologies of financial markets.
This is not merely a question of inadequate regulation. The
deeper problem is the private ownership of social institutions and the
subordinate role of sporting life to capital accumulation. The Super League
fiasco demonstrated how billionaire owners and banks seek to reorganise
football as a closed, guaranteed-income franchise system—concentrating wealth
at the top at the expense of the mass of clubs and supporters. Crypto
initiatives are a continuation of that dynamic: financialising fan loyalty,
securitising culture, and insulating profits from democratic accountability.
Workers and fans must develop independent class responses. Immediate demands include public disclosure of clubs’ financial links with crypto and hedge funds; protections for workers’ wages and pensions against speculative shocks; and legal safeguards preventing clubs from mortgaging community assets to opaque financial instruments. Politically, the working class must assert control over social wealth—bringing sports clubs, stadiums and media into democratic, public or cooperatively controlled ownership under workers’ and supporters’ oversight.
In conclusion, cryptocurrency in football is not a harmless
innovation but a step further in the financialisation of everyday life. It
concentrates wealth, multiplies instability and will ruin the lives of football
fans and workers alike.
[1]
The Great Crypto Con: why is football falling back in love with the blockchain?-sportingintelligence832.substack.com/p/the-great-crypto-con-why-is-football
[2]
Billionaires’ European Super League proposal shelved amid mass opposition from
football fans-www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/04/24/supe-a24.html
