Spanish football also fell into the arms of the crypto industry. Now suffer the hangover

In October 2021, shortly before the stock market crashes of technology companies began, their news of layoffs and the spiraling of many cryptocurrencies, we published an article entitled “Crypto fever reaches football: this is how ‘fan tokens’ work that more and more clubs are adopting”. In Spain and outside of it, many clubs began to display crypto companies on their chests, or at least to have them as sponsors, in some cases adopting the aforementioned fan tokens.

Fever He even reached the RFEF (Royal Spanish Football Federation), which agreed a sponsorship with Bitci, whose logo appeared on the back of the players during training; and whose main point of agreement was in the launch of the fan token of the Selection.

Today there is little left of the link between Spanish football and cryptocurrencies that emerged in 2021. Among the little that remains there are some agreements that are still in force and without incident, such as those of Barça with WhiteBIT and Chiliz; or those of Atlético with WhaleFin, in addition to the multiple presence of Socios.com. In other clubs, on the other hand, only defaults remain, complaints and an experience to forget.

Logos on the kit…

The great protagonist of this story, although not the only one, is bitci, a Turkish company dedicated to cryptocurrencies that landed in a big way in Spanish football. Celta de Vigo, Cádiz, Espanyol, Alavés and Betis, in addition to the National Team, were sponsored by her. Although a first batch of payments was fulfilled without problems, non-payments did not take long to appear.

Some clubs began to look for alternatives very early in view of the situation, others preferred to wait until June 30, the expiration date of some contracts, to start filing complaints.

Bitci excused himself in the legal situation of your country of origin to excuse their non-payments by appealing to their solvency, but almost a year later they have still not paid. Celta de Vigo has just announced that he has initiated legal action against the company after explaining that he never received a single payment from Bitci.

Press release.
Press release.
Basin bulteni.@bitcicomtr @bitcifantokentr #Bitcoin@onuryeygun @onuraltantan pic.twitter.com/vmfNoqYI2Z

— RC Celta (@RCCelta) March 13, 2023

The Spanish announced two months ago the rupture of its relations with Bitci for the same reason: defaults. He was one of the big sponsors of the club parakeet, only behind Riviera Maya in the hierarchy. The agreement was signed from the 2021-2022 season until the end of the 2023-2024 season, but it ended abruptly.

In the case of the Catalan team, He came to collect 250,000 euros, but an amount of about 750,000 euros remained pending, the one corresponding to the variable quantity of its fan tokens. The company made a single issue in which it put 40% of the initial intention on the market. However, Espanyol did maintain after the deal with Crypto Snack in order to admit payments in cryptocurrencies in its online store and other payment points.

2Playbook, platform specialized in business for the sports industry, warned in June 2022 that this was going to end up happening, since the clubs were already preparing, together with the RFEF, their legal offensive to collect the defaults.

… and fan tokens

Bitci, like Iqoniq, which left a hole of almost one million euros in the accounts of the Royal Society, not only offered sponsorship, but also the creation of the fan tokensomething that it has hardly left money to anyone other than the platform itself watching the evolution of the values ​​of the token of some clubs; also victims of the crypto crash of recent months.

Some examples, from the time of its launch until today:

The RFEF celebrated in July 2021 the success of the start-up from his fan token by the hand of Bitci. The “tiki-tokens”.

The followers of the Spanish Soccer Team from all over the world have exhausted all the stocks of the digital currencies of the national team. The initiative of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) launched through its sponsor Bitci.com, this Friday, July 30, has been a resounding success. […]

Thanks to the sponsor Bitci.com, a technology company, the RFEF has put these “tiki-tokens” on the market for just 50 cents and they offer a large number of advantages and actions linked to the National Team. It is an initiative linked to the “blockchain”, the cryptographic technology based on a chain of blocks for the exchange of value between people through the Internet.

The luck of the value of the token it has been similar.

From xataka We have consulted the RFEF about the current status of its relationship with Bitci (whose logo no longer appears on its website or on the National Team’s clothing), without having received a response at the time of publishing this article. In May 2022 we learned that the RFEF planned to present Huobi, a cryptocurrency platform that operates out of the Seychelles, as its new sponsor. However, the lack of authorization from the CNMV for this company to operate in Spain changed the plans.

Meanwhile, the clubs have returned to their more or less usual sponsors, given that from 2021 they can no longer show sponsorships from bookmakers, and in some cases with similar conflicts. Some, with companies linked to their land, such as Celta, with Estrella Galicia or Abanca. Others, such as Betis, have replaced the Bitci logo under their number with that of LegacyFX, a trading company. trading based in Cyprus.

Valencia no longer wears the promotion of its fan token on the chest, which now bears the Cazoo logo, who is also at war with and that it does not even have a presence in Spain anymore. Cádiz went from wearing the Bitci logo to that of Khalifa Capital and now shows the Digi logo, who together with Finetwork has become strong in Spanish football.

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Featured Image | Cadiz CF