In August, prominent Dutch football club PSV announced a partnership with bitcoin exchange Anycoin Direct, which became the club’s Official Partner for the following two seasons. The exchange paid the sponsorship contract entirely in bitcoin, a first among the major European football clubs, and PSV has recently confirmed to Bitcoin Magazine that the BTC is still held in the club’s balance sheet.
“The possibilities and the future that the world of cryptocurrency offers is very promising,” said Frans Janssen, commercial director of PSV, when he signed the sponsorship agreement. “As a club in the heart of the Brainport region, we are always innovating, and cryptocurrency fits well into this picture.”
Janssen created the necessary Bitcoin wallets immediately after signing the contract to receive the proceeds in BTC sovereignly. The club has been self-custodying all the bitcoin received through the sponsorship since August, with no plans to sell it.
“Anycoin paid their sponsor rights to us via a certain number of bitcoins which we hold in our own wallet,” Janssen told Bitcoin Magazine on September 22.
PSV’s pioneering move in the European Union (EU) was recently shared as a success case in the most prominent marketing & insights event in the Netherlands, MIE, fulfilling the club’s initial intention of increasing Bitcoin awareness in the EU.
“Growing up in the region, PSV has always been very close to me,” said Lennert Vlemmings, COO at Anycoin, in August. “As a technology company from the Brainport area we are very excited to be working with PSV. The payment in Bitcoin marks the next step for the adoption of cryptocurrency in the EU.”
PSV’s pioneering move is set to prompt other clubs to adopt bitcoin, mainly because of game theory. As BTC keeps gaining purchasing power against the euro, clubs without bitcoin exposure will be at a disadvantage. This will likely be demonstrated in transfer windows when PSV might secure better players because of the price-appreciated BTC in its balance sheet.
The Eindhoven Football Club PSV is a 108-years-old club from Eindhoven, Netherlands, that plays in the Eredivisie, the top-tier league in Dutch football, which it has won 24 times. In addition to national trophies, the club has also won the UEFA Cup in 1978 and the European Cup in 1987-88.