Sources: £30m-a-year announcement imminent after Liverpool green-light controversial deal
Liverpool NFT partner Sorare plans to announce a Premier League-wide licensing deal in the first quarter of 2023, Football Insider has learned.
The deal, which has previously been reported as worth £30million-a-year over an unspecified contract length, will see the company provide digital collectables for the top flight.
The Premier League agreed a deal in principle with fellow NFT firm ConsenSys in March last year, but the agreement soon collapsed after the crash in the cryptocurrency market.
A source has now told Football Insider that Sorare will pick up where ConsenSys left off and hope to make the deal official as early as possible.
The agreement will go ahead despite criticism from the political sphere, with the promotion of cryptoassets in sports having been scrutinised in the House of Commons as recently as November.
Finance expert Kieran Maguire has previously told Football Insider that the crypto and NFT industries are “insidious” and have “zero standards” in terms of the risks they pose to consumers.
But some analysts also claim that commercial partnerships with blockchain specialists have helped Premier League clubs not only survive the pandemic but emerge from it in an arguably stronger position.
Liverpool are one of a handful of Premier League sides whose players are officially licensed and whose trading card-style representations are already available to buy in Sorare.
It has been reported elsewhere that the top flight are also in negotiations with another NFT company, DapperLabs, with a view to a separate commercial arrangement.
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