The cryptocurrency investors behind the takeover of Crawley Town have vowed to build a "worldwide community of fans" for the League Two club.
WAGMI United LLC announced on Thursday that it had taken a controlling stake just months after a similar deal to purchase Bradford City collapsed. The company are to use non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as an ownership model, allowing people across the world to make decisions on the club, while also generating valuable revenue streams. NFTs have no physical form but can be bought or sold.
WAGMI co-founders Preston Johnson and Eben Smith will be taking over at a club with an average attendance this season of 2.249 - the second-lowest in the EFL.
In a statement, Johnson said: "Crawley Town Football Club is a club with more than 125 years of rich history that we revere and respect. However, a conventional approach to ownership hasn't worked, and the club is losing hundreds of thousands of pounds while its fans suffer through year after year of uninspiring results on the pitch.
"We think the club can do better and our fans deserve better. Sports are supposed to be fun and bring communities together. At Crawley Town, we're going to shake up the status quo, try out some new ideas, and build a worldwide community of fans new and old that can be excited to cheer on the Red Devils together — stretching from West Sussex to anywhere in the world with an internet connection."
The bold plans also extend to giving fans a voice in terms of the directors' own future. Johnson and Smith say that supporters will be able to decide whether or not they keep their roles for the following season if the team does not achieve its goal: earning promotion to League One by the end of their second campaign in charge.
Smith said: "If we're trying to build a community club, and we are, then we have to build in mechanisms to hold ourselves accountable. So if Crawley Town Football Club doesn't get promoted to League One by the end of our second season, which we think is about 50/50, then we under-performed. If we underperform, Crawley Town fans should get to vote on who the next directors of the club are."
Crawley are currently 13th in League Two with the play-offs out of reach and the club safe from relegation, in what is their seventh straight campaign in the fourth tier. Crawley manager John Yems said: "This is an exciting time for the club. Let's hope that we can continue the good progress we have made and take the club forward."
Cryptocurrency has taken a more prominent role in football over the last few years. In 2018, Turkish side Harunustaspo became the world's first football team to purchase a player using Bitcoin. More recently, eToro has become a major player in advertising and sponsorship after signing deals with the likes of Premier League sides Tottenham, Leicester and Newcastle.
And in February Manchester United agreed to a lucrative £20m sponsorship deal with blockchain platform Tezos.
