Liverpool launched the ‘LFC Heroes Club’ with much fanfare in the first quarter of the year but the campaign appears to be in hot water after fans claim no contact from Liverpool.
More about the Sale
The campaign initially started in March with the launch of 24 rare ‘Legendary’ and 171,072 ‘Hero’ tokens through Sotheby’s.
The sale was expected to help the club make more than £8.5m, however, projections failed and it only brought a percentage of the expected amount. The club could only earn £567,000 through the Legendary tokens and the sale of Hero wasn’t very impressive either.
The first 9,721 ‘Hero’ coins were sold at £57 each, failing to attract the desired numbers.
The official description read:
“LFC Heroes Club is your opportunity to take part in the world’s most innovative football fan community. You’ll get a unique digital collectible, engage with football’s greatest family, and access exciting benefits, all in one NFT community.”
The Club did not promote these as investment tokens. Instead, the marketing was designed to attract fans and offer them a chance to be a part of the prestigious club.
“Each digital collectible is a unique piece of art. Nobody else will hold the same NFT as you.“
“On top of that, you’ll join a passionate LFC community, with access to an LFC community forum, unique experiences, virtual hang-outs, competitions, guest appearances, updates from the LFC Foundation and LFC retail discounts.”
Despite this, the tokens were seen as an investment tool due to their nature and the rise of NFTs.
Why Did It Fail?
Experts believe that the sudden fall of cryptocurrency is the cause. Some of the coins are currently selling at around £8.96 – at a loss of about £48 each.
“There was a big spike in early June but many LFC Heroes NFTs are trading for far less than they were ‘minted’ for,” says The Athletic‘s Joey D’Urso “and far less than they were a couple of months ago.”
Liverpool isn’t the only club facing this situation, and other Premier League clubs or supporters are in a similar boat. However, Liverpool investors or token holders believe that a lack of support from Liverpool is unfair as there has been no contact from the club and fans are waiting to hear back from the club.
Fans seem upset as the club originally promised an ‘opportunity for interaction’ to token holders, which proved to be one of the major driving forces for the sale. However, so far, there has “been no access to an LFC community forum, unique experiences, virtual hang-outs, competitions, guest appearances, updates from the LFC Foundation, and LFC retail discounts,” says an expert.
The situation may improve once the crypto market begins to rise. For the time being, the club doesn’t appear to be interested in the campaign and is in the news for negotiating with a number of cryptocurrency companies for a potential sponsorship deal once the current deal with Standard Chartered expires in 2023.
