RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The signing of Lionel Messi by PSG has shaken the soccer world and even impacted the financial market. PSG fan tokens increased by 120% to almost US$50 after the Argentine joined the Parisian club and will receives crypto tokens as part of his salary.
With an estimated salary of US$41 million per year, Messi received bonuses of another US$30 million as part of his contract signing. According to Reuters, that amount included a “large number” of PSG tokens.
The PSG fan token gives voting rights to influence decisions within the club, such as the music played after a win or the name of a new room in the stadium. The token, created in the middle of last year, has grown in value by about 600% since June 2020, considering its current price of US$40. This year alone, the cumulative increase is already 260%.
With the strong increase in value, the market value of PSG tokens has reached US$120 million. The strong demand for PSG tokens highlights the growing influence of crypto activities in sports. Like the French club, other teams have followed suit.
FC Barcelona, which like PSG entered the fan token market about a year ago, has seen its share price plummet by 50% since March. However, the departure of the Argentine star had little impact on the Catalan asset, which remains the second-highest market value at US$80.7 million.
The interest of clubs in issuing their own cryptocurrencies is not limited to European soccer. Cruzeiro has taken a parallel path in Brazil, introducing tokens that give rights to percentages of transactions involving players from youth categories. The value is part of the payment to the training clubs required by FIFA on all transfers.
Corinthians and Atlético Mineiro are waiting to launch their fan tokens on the same platform as Barcelona and PSG, Socios.com.
This fashion has also caught on in Turkey: Three clubs have already issued fan tokens, with two more in the pipeline. The fan token of Galatasaray, one of the most important clubs in the country, is the third-largest in the world, with a market value of US$43.2 million.
Even soccer federations such as Argentina and Portugal have opted to issue fan tokens. According to Coin Market Cap, the fan token market is already worth US$2.44 billion.
However, the largest share is accounted for by the US$2.07 billion market value of Chiliz tokens, which come from the company responsible for the fan token exchange and Socios.com. The assets of Chiliz are also used as currency for the purchase of Fan Tokens.