The shirtum NFT scam is popping up all over the news. Now fans are rushing to blame the players in question. Alejandro “Papu” Gómez, Lucas Ocampos, Ivan Rakitic – these are not just names, they are household names. They took equity investments while heavily promoting Shirtum, and now those investors are suing them, alleging they defrauded them out of millions. We know it’s tempting to jump to conclusions, but hold up just a moment. Are we certain these players are bad actors, or might they be victims as well?

Celebrity Endorsements A Double Edged Sword

Today we live in an influencer marketing boom. Celebrities, athletes in the mix, get paid megabucks to peddle everything from soft drinks to wipies. The crypto world is no different. Companies dangle multi-million dollar contracts in front of these athletes, touting quick cash for a couple insta-hits. Let’s face it, most footballers aren’t blockchain geniuses. They get an idea of a paycheck, of an opportunity to engage with their fans in a different way, and they just flock on.

Here’s where the unintended consequences come in. The lack of regulation in the crypto space is a breeding ground for scams. For one thing, these projects are often not done transparently. In their hurry to grab their piece of the new thing, they neglect basic due diligence. Footballers, relying on agents and financial advisors, may not be fully aware of those risks. They're essentially lending their brand and reputation to a product they don't fully comprehend.

Now consider that you’re a world-class athlete with a laser-like focus on training and performance. Next, you get pitched by an NFT project that tells you that they can help you engage with your fans and create new revenue streams. The pitch is super slick, the bucks are impressive, and all your friends and colleagues are telling you that you’d be a fool to miss this opportunity. Are you actually willing to go dedicate weeks upon weeks to reading through the whitepaper and examining the code with a fine-tooth comb? Or are you just going to put faith in the professionals that you’ve contracted to run your finances?

Gambling Ban Pushed Players To Crypto?

Spain banned gambling advertising in football. This decision, while intended to protect vulnerable individuals from gambling addiction, may have inadvertently pushed clubs and players towards riskier revenue streams like cryptocurrency partnerships. With the ban came a funding gap. Crypto projects were all too eager to make themselves available, offering up enticing claims of quick returns to meet this new demand.

It’s a classic case of unintended consequences. Well-meaning plans that lead to dangerous results.

Clubs and players alike, cut off from easily accessible gambling revenues, are suddenly becoming desperate and directly trying to find new revenue streams. Enter crypto its unregulated structure and celebrity boosters made it a sexy option. The appetite for new, more sustainable, revenue streams is fierce. Just like every other unregulated crypto casino, raggedy scams like Shirtum are enjoying their heyday on this Wild West of a crypto-eco-system.

Footballers Exploited By A Flawed System

This isn’t to let the footballers off the hook entirely. They, for sure, have a responsibility to do at least some due diligence before advocating for any particular product. Let’s not act like they have the specialized expertise to understand and chart the complexities they’d face in deep crypto watersheds. After all, they are footballers, not financial analysts or blockchain developers.

The real tragedy here is the system that led to this nonsense in the first place. A loophole-riddled system that let bad actors launch unregulated crypto projects to prey on investors and celebrities alike. A system that has no clear standards for celebrity endorsements in the cryptocurrency space. The footballers in the Shirtum case, though possibly naive or overly trusting of the so-called process at play, are victims of this deeply imperfect, toothless system.

The lawsuit claims that Shirtum used the footballers’ endorsements to establish its own credibility, rolling them out as “co-founders” or ambassadors. This is a crucial point. Did these players truly contribute to the development and management of Tether and its technical underpinnings or were they just hired guns to schlep it? That difference is key to concluding on their culpability.

At its core, the Shirtum scandal is a symptom of a greater miscommunication and lack of regulation in the world of crypto and web3. We should be working to protect these investors as well as celebrities from being exploited. More rigorous due diligence requirements will now fall on crypto projects. Along with these, there will be more specific rules for celebrity endorsements and greater education for all parties.

We have to stop treating footballers like piñatas. Now it’s time to address the systemic failures that allowed this scam to occur in the first place. The devils are not always the players. Those are the people who planned the fraud and the broken system that made it possible for them to succeed. We can only hope that this investigation gets to the bottom of what happened and brings those responsible to justice. Oh, and may this be a wake-up call to the rest of the industry.