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What is a fan token?
A fan token is a crypto token linked to a sports club, mostly football (soccer) clubs. Holders can vote in polls the club chooses to run and may get rewards or experiences; the token is a cryptoasset, held in a crypto wallet and traded on exchanges.
What it means for you
A fan token gives no share in the club, its profits or its real decisions. Bought ones have a price that can go down as well as up, and in the UK they are unregulated cryptoassets on which capital gains tax can be due when sold at a profit.
A common mistake: “Owning a club's fan token makes you part-owner of the club.”
In fact: It does not: it is a cryptoasset that carries votes in the polls the club chooses to run, with no share in the club or its profits.
How it works
Some fan tokens are handed out free; others are bought, usually by first buying another cryptocurrency and exchanging it for the club's token through a cryptoasset exchange account. The polls are over things a club puts to fans, such as a song or a design, with more tokens usually meaning more votes. In 2021 and 2022 the UK's Advertising Standards Authority upheld complaints against a football club's fan-token ads: they did not make clear the tokens were cryptoassets whose value is variable, left out that buying one needs an exchange account and another cryptocurrency, and did not mention capital gains tax, which the ruling said took advantage of consumers' inexperience.
Source: ASA Ruling on Arsenal Football Club plc (10 August 2022) · checked 5 October 2026
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