The Football Supporters’ Federation (FSF) has criticised the new fan tokens launched by Socios and West Ham this week saying that fan engagement should be free.
The FSF article says “The tradeable Fan Tokens are limited in number, and their price is driven by the market according to Socios.com. They say the platform is being developed to help sports teams “increase fan engagement and achieve essential investment from fan-monetization”.
Since 2016, clubs have been required to meet with their supporters to discuss club matters under Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) guidelines. This “structured dialogue” is now in the English Football League (EFL) and Premier League rulebooks.
The FSF and Supporters Direct contributed to the Expert Working Group that created the Government’s guidelines on supporter engagement and have been tracking their implementation at clubs across the country.
FSF chief exec Kevin Miles said: “We worked quite closely with the Premier League, FA, EFL and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to create a set of recommendations which all league and clubs adopted to greater or lesser extent.
“They included many principles around how clubs and leagues should engage with supporters along open, democratic lines.
“The Socios model runs counter to that as it attempts to monetise fan engagement which the leagues and clubs have committed to doing for free. There should be no financial barriers to engaging with your football club.”
The idea that if you buy tokens, you will have an audible voice in what happens at the club sounds bizarre and it’s highly unlikely you’d get anything other than a hole in your bank balance. To say to supporters ‘your voice matters… as long as you’ve bought some tokens’ is ridiculous but maybe reflective of society.