A football club in Gibraltar made history by making the decision to pay its players in cryptocurrencies. Gibraltar United, a Premium Division football team announced that payments to players will be made in crypto by the next season.

Pablo Dana, the owner of the team is an investor and believer in the cryptocurrency Quantocion, which facilitates the use of cryptocurrency for everyday uses. This led him to forge a sponsorship partnership between the team and the Quantocoin team. While it may seem that the combination of cryptocurrencies and football came all of a sudden, it is not surprising when we look at the state of blockchain and cryptocurrencies in the state of Gibraltar.

The government released regulations to guide the use of blockchain in businesses this January. In addition to this, it is all set to announce a legal framework for Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) which are a cause of debate all over the world.

While the nation is showing mass adoption towards this emerging technology, Dana believes that it will help to reduce corruption in the football sports industry significantly.

Regarding Gibraltar as a perfect environment for this move, Dana says,

“It was the first [place that] regulated betting companies 20 years back when everyone was seeing them as horrible. They put compliance and anti-money laundering regulations and created a platform – they have the intelligence to do the same with cryptocurrencies.”

The innovation would also help ease the payment to foreign players who struggle to establish bank accounts in Gibraltar and enable them to avoid unnecessary taxes and fees. Gibraltar United is not the only team embracing this technology. The Arsenal Football Club in London also entered into a sponsorship deal with CashBet in January.

Moreover, the London Football Exchange is highly interested in building a community of fans along with a token to bridge the gap between players and fans. Even more interesting is the fact that Bar, an Italian Club, and Alcobendas, a Madrid based club are allowed to include cryptocurrency to reduce merchandise and ticket prices, and giving an option to the owners to hold equity in the clubs.

The entrance of cryptocurrencies in the football world has triggered a wave of adoption for many currencies. Popular players like Lionel Messi, Luis Figo, and Michael Owen have partnered with various cryptocurrency projects which further strengthens the legitimacy of these tokens.