So far, so good for Liverpool, who are very big contenders to win what would be an unprecedented quadruple in English football.
The Reds are just one point behind Premier League leaders Manchester City in the title race, while they've already won the EFL Cup and are into the semi-finals of the FA Cup. In addition, they've avoided taking on tougher opponents like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester City, Bayern Munich and reigning champs Chelsea and have been given a seemingly (at least on paper) more favorable draw in the Champions League quarter-finals, with Benfica being their next opponent.
However, not everything has gone so swimmingly for Jurgen Klopp's men. Recently, the English giants decided to dip their toes into the world of digital currencies, namely with NFTs (non-fungible tokens). This concept has generated its fair share of buzz - both good and bad - due to how it's made quite a bit of money, yet at the same time, there are concerns about sustainability and other financial security concerns.
In any case, collaborations between football and and fintech aren't unusual as of late, and Liverpool decided to dip their toes into the cryptocurrency market - much to the annoyance of quite a few fans.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have the impact the club would have expected. According to reports, they've only sold a bit under 10,000 NFTs to date (9,721 to be exact), which is less than six percent of the 171,000 NFTs they'd offered in the marketplace.
Digital artworks featuring personalities such as Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk, and Jurgen Klopp went on auction at famed auction house Sotheby's for about $75 each.
Here are some of the offerings Liverpool put up for action at Sotheby's, featuring van Dijk, Klopp, and Salah:
If they had all sold at that price, the entire collection would have brought in $12.8 million. However, while it does look like a huge loss on paper, Liverpool actually claim that they've been able to make about $1.48 million, with a bit more than one-fifth ($370,465) going towards charity.
That's largely thanks to artworks featuring Klopp and Salah fetching about $80,000 at the Sotheby's auction. So while they may be somewhat satisfied with their foray into the world of NFTs, it hasn't gone down so well with fans, some of whom felt it was an underhanded way to generate more revenue.
All in all, it will be interesting to see if other clubs follow suit in this direction after this disappointing outcome for Liverpool in the world of digital art and NFTs.
