Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), the defending French champion and one of the wealthiest football clubs worldwide, is considering to release its own cryptocurrency as a way to increase fan participation on a global scale.

Despite being the only team from the capital in the French top division, PSG have struggled for most of their recent history. However, their fortunes quickly changed with the arrival of new owners Qatar Sports Investments group and its chairman Nasser Al-Khelaifi who became the new club president.

Since the takeover six years ago, the club has won five league titles and unprecedented four French cups in a row, completely dominating the domestic competition. Last year, PSG shook the football industry by signing Brazilian superstar Neymar for a world-record fee of €222 million and the world’s best young player Kylian Mbappé for a reported €180 million.

The club has also recently entered the e-sports field, signing the leading Chinese Dota 2 team LGD to its roster and it seems their next venture is another emerging industry. PSG has announced a partnership with Maltese startup Socios, a tokenization platform for football teams.

In turn, Socios is run by chiliZ, a blockchain startup with a focus on e-sports, which has already secured backing from high-profile crypto companies, such as Binance and raised around $66 million as of press time. Speaking to CCN, its CEO Alex Dreyfus claimed that, “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 are clubs in the UK, Italy, Spain and Germany.“

The Fan Token will not have a monetary value, however. Instead, it will grant access to features, available exclusively to token owners, such as meeting the players or voting rights on decisions like stadium music, club crest, colour of the team kit, etc. The fan tokens will be tradable on the Socios marketplace but only against the chiliZ token (CHZ).

Marc Armstrong, Chief Partnership Officer of PSG welcomed the new partnership, claiming that, “Paris Saint-Germain is determined to leverage the opportunities that cryptocurrency can provide. This revolutionary technology will have an important impact on the club’s overall business strategy and the way we engage with our fan base.“

The release date and pricing of the fan token is unclear but the offering will reportedly take place before the next football season, which means PSG fans will have to wait for another year to get involved.

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