Six former La Liga stars have been accused of fraud as part of their role in a company that was looking to sell cryptocurrency and Non-Fundgible Tokens (NFTs) in their likeness. Despite not playing a role in the sales, nor the strategy of the operation, the footballers have been included in the legal complaint.
As explained by El Periodico and quoted by Marca, the heads of the company Shirtum Europa has been accused of fraudmongst other charges. They were intending on selling to €3m worth of NFTs and cryptocurrency, but then shut down production before said ‘goods’ went on the market by Shirtum.
Six players all played for Sevilla
The six players accused of fraud as part of the case are Ivan Rakitic, Javier Saviola, Nico Pareja, Alejandro ‘Papu’ Gomez, Lucas Ocampos and Alberto Moreno. The players are alleged to have had an ‘active role’ in selling the tokens, and in particular, Gomez had a close relationship with one of the four leading minds behind the operations, David Rozencwaig.
Both Gomez and Rakitic are accused of wrongdoing.
Rozencwaig, alongside Manel Angel Torras, Marc Alberto Torras and Manuel Morillas had created an application to sell NFTs of the six footballers, and were due to put them on the market for €450 each. They then received investment from outside backers – the people behind the lawsuit – but Shirtum closed the application before it went live. Neither the blockchain cryptocurrency or the NFTs at any point held any value.
Cryptocurrency on the rise in Spanish football
The presence of cryotocurrency and NFTs has been on the rise in recent years. After La Liga banned betting companies from sponsoring shirts for professional teams, several sides entered into partnerships with teams like Valencia. Meanwhile Barcelona have released their own NFTs, and sold 24.95% of Barca Vision to Socios, a major blockchain company, to the tune of €100m. However Barcelona have since been forced to seek new buyers for those shares, with Socios not paying up the money.