Soccer teams have been warned against exploiting their fans through cryptocurrency fan tokens.
MPs in the UK have warned sports teams that they ultimately risk damaging their reputations by selling the "one-of-a-kind" assets.
Dame Caroline Dinenage, the chair of the Culture, Media and Sport committee, said: "Clubs are promoting volatile crypto-asset schemes to extract additional money from loyal supporters, often with promises of privileges and perks that fails to materialise."
Kieran Maguire, a sports finance expert, has suggested that sports teams see NFTs as an "easy cash grab".
He told the BBC: "A wave of optimism was created which underpinned and created speculative values for [them]. Then when people actually worked out exactly what the benefits were, they were pretty insignificant, and people started to look for an exit route."
Earlier this year, meanwhile, the UK government dropped its plans to produce a NFT for sale through the Royal Mint.
Andrew Griffith confirmed news of the abandonment.
He said: "In consultation with HM Treasury, the Royal Mint is not proceeding with the launch of a non-fungible token at this time but will keep this proposal under review."
The move was subsequently welcomed by Tulip Siddiq, the shadow City minister.
She said at the time: "I’m glad that the Royal Mint has finally made the Conservatives see sense, but we’ve been calling on the chancellor to drop this crypto gimmick for months.
"This out-of-touch government should be focused on the cost of living crisis, not wasting time and taxpayers’ money on an NFT vanity project and promoting dodgy stablecoins."
