Brentford-Burnley Transfer Talks Show Football's Crypto Sponsorship Pipeline

The negotiations between Brentford and Burnley over winger Jaidon Anthony are a routine piece of Premier League business. Both clubs have spent years building relationships with crypto firms, and the transfer puts those ties in the same frame.

Burnley wore Uphold’s logo on its sleeves during the 2023-24 Premier League season. The crypto exchange’s branding appeared on kits and around the stadium. Before Uphold, Burnley had a deal with Rapidz, a digital assets platform. In December 2021, the club’s ownership group ALK Capital explored issuing a digital security token with INX Limited. That project has not yet produced a live token.

Brentford announced CoinJar as its Platinum Partner in August 2021, just before the club’s first Premier League season. CoinJar is a crypto exchange based in Australia and the UK. The partnership gave the exchange visibility during the club’s debut in the top flight.

Anthony himself has a presence on Sorare, the blockchain-based fantasy football platform. Fans can collect and trade NFT cards of real players, and performance on the pitch affects the value of those digital assets. Sorare runs on Ethereum.

The transfer itself involves no blockchain mechanics. No tokens change hands. No smart contracts govern the fee. It is a traditional cash negotiation between two clubs.

The more structurally interesting piece is Burnley’s tokenization exploration. If a club moves beyond sponsorship into equity or fan-ownership tokens, a genuinely new market opens. ALK Capital’s 2021 exploration with INX Limited has not yet produced a live token. Whether it ever does remains an open question.