Arsenal’s cryptocurrency token leads to court decision

The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has criticized the football club for misleading fans. The initial complaint concerned content published on Arsenal’s Facebook and website in August 2021, which advertised its $AFC fan token. The agency claims that Arsenal failed to clarify that the cost of investing in paid fan tokens was variable and that crypto assets were unregulated.

This is not the first time that the ASA has condemned a club for its cryptocurrency activities. At the end of last year, the regulator banned the club’s Facebook posts and website that advertised «fan tokens» because they «exploited consumers' inexperience with cryptocurrency assets and misled consumers by failing to explain that these NFTs must be redeemed for other cryptocurrency.»

Suzanne Streeter, senior investment and market analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, a British financial company, commented on the incident: «This decision is another stark reminder that people should resist investing in schemes they don’t fully understand. Team fans should only manage funds they can afford to lose. It also underscores the need to accelerate the plan to give the state’s regulatory body, the Financial Conduct Authority, more power to regulate the crypto industry.»

Earlier, we wrote that Socios invested $ 100 million in the metaverse of the Spanish football club FC Barcelona.