Cristiano Ronaldo’s football club, Juventus, now has its own crypto token

Juventus Football Club of Italy now has its own crypto token that gives voting power to its 40+ million fans. According to an announcement shared with The Block earlier, Juventus has collaborated with Socios.com, a sports-focused blockchain firm, for the token $JUV. Using Socios' app, Juventus’ fans can now purchase these tokens and earn a right to vote on some club decisions and earn rewards. 

Alexandre Dreyfus, founder and CEO of Socios.com, told The Block:

99.9% of sports fans are not in the city/country of the team they are supporting. We created these fungible fans tokens to allow fans to have an influence over some fan-based initiatives. 

For example, fans can cast their votes on the first poll, which will decide the song that will replace Chelsea Dagger (the song that's currently played every time Juventus scores a goal at the Allianz Stadium). Only fans who own $JUV have the right to vote. JUV is currently priced at around €2 (~$2.2) apiece. Through the Socios app's “Augmented Reality” feature “Token Hunt,” a limited number of these tokens are available for free. 

Giorgio Ricci, chief revenue officer of Juventus said:

We are proud to be the first Club to be activated by Socios.com on its platform, inaugurating a new way to interact with our fans around the world.

Socios is aiming to tokenize more football clubs across the globe. It has already lined up six deals for Q1 2020. These include Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) and Atlético de Madrid (tokens for which will be launched in late January); West Ham United, Galatasaray and A.S. Roma (in February) and esports provider OG (in March), per the announcement.