According to the report, the platform collaborating with football clubs to provide fan tokens had denied crucial staff members their salaries for years. The allegations suggest discrepancies in advisor payments since 2020, leading to raised concerns by involved staff.
Socios has managed over 50 partnerships with premier league clubs globally, including Arsenal, Everton, Paris Saint Germain, Barcelona, and more. However, football was not its only forte as it boasted more collaborations with sports companies during its progression.
The current state of its legal matters is pushing its partners to rethink previously made deals between Socios and the company heading its operations, Chiliz. More reports from the investigation place Chiliz’s CEO Alexander Dreyfus at the middle of the scandal.
While supporting groups continue their vigilance to halt all partnerships with Socios, they were also quick to point out the haste involved parties have in joining crypto companies. It goes without saying that the fan tokens industry has been booming alongside other sectors like NFTs and metaverses. The growing concern is that lack of well-laid guidelines to avoid incidents like this from happening.
Socios has been in the spotlight for a while now, presenting fans with a blockchain-powered platform to acquire virtual tokens related to sports clubs. Its parent company provides it with the Chiliz token used for transactions on its marketplace. The fan tokens open opportunities to different rewards for supporters, including games, merchandise, fan clubs, and more.
The ongoing allegations against Socios and Chiliz suggest that Alexander Dreyfus withheld top advisors’ payments to cushion the Chiliz token value. The owed funds are in cryptocurrencies, which led to the advisors considering turning to legal action. Furthermore, the party who brought the issue to light was apparently fired due to harassment charges.
Allegedly, different individuals brought the issue to Dreyfus in 2020 but he brushed it off. The large group of recruits involved members from top companies like Google, Team Vitality, Sina Sports, esports influencers, among others. Nonetheless, Drefyus went on to treat them as a non-issue after the first few settlements, terming their payments as Chiliz offering them free money.
The growing queries around potentially millions of dollars in missed payments may connect Socios to involvement in Chiliz token market manipulation. The company did not directly deny the allegations of withholding funds to prevent the Chiliz token plunge. The token has undergone a series of fluctuations over the years, raising more questions as to the decisions made.
Surprisingly, a few hours after the interviews with Off The Pitch, the advisors received their full pay. To prevent a bias in the reports, clubs and Off The Pitch are going forward to hold discussions with Chiliz on the matter to have a clear picture. As it stands, there is still a lot of back and forth from both sides that needs to be cleared up.
Image by Damon Nofar from Pixabay
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