Argentine soccer superstar Lionel Messi, regarded as one of the game'south greatest players of all time, has reportedly fabricated crypto fan tokens a part of the payment deal in his financial bundle with French gild Paris Saint-Germain. The information comes from sources close to the affair, according to Reuters.

Messi, 34, who had been at FC Barcelona since he was 13, this calendar week signed a two-year contract with Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), with an option to extend for a third year. His departure from Barcelona, with which he won four Champions League titles, was sealed after Spanish La Liga's fiscal off-white play rules made information technology fiscally unviable for the guild to continue to afford the star actor.

Messi has won the European Golden Shoe honour for top scorer and FIFA's player of the yr award six times each and volition reportedly net an annual salary of $41 1000000 (plus bonuses) in addition to a $thirty-million signing bonus at PSG, reports claim. PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi has said at a printing conference this week that should the precise figures for the deal exist made public, people would be "shocked, honestly, at the numbers we have."

With the exact details still shrouded in secrecy, the allocation and terms of the inclusion of crypto fan tokens in Messi'southward contract are unknown. Cointelegraph has reached out to PSG for comment and will update this commodity with further information should it exist forthcoming. Blockchain firm Chiliz, which operates the sports token platform Socios on which $PSG fan tokens are issued, has today revealed that $PSG trading volumes surged to over $1.two billion in the days preceding the player'south move.

Related: Crypto fan tokens a mixed bag for game-deprived soccer fans

Fan tokens go along to be popular in global sports, with major Turkish multi-sport social club Fenerbahçe South.Thou. completing an initial presale of 500,000 tokens on Ethereum this week, netting the club $ane.75 meg in thirty seconds.

PSG has itself been involved in crypto since 2022 through its partnership with the Socios blockchain platform, which also counts Messi's onetime social club FC Barcelona as a partner aslope a host of other international, high-profile clubs that include Atlético de Madrid, Juventus, Manchester City and many others.

Flash sales for fan tokens are undeniably lucrative for the clubs involved and became even more prevalent during the pandemic-induced lockdowns terminal year as a mode to raise clubs' digital presence, boost acquirement and maintain fan date. Yet critics of the model take argued that the voting rights associated with token ownership offer fans footling more than a cosmetic say in clubs' operations and correspond a gratuitous monetization of fan date.