West Ham have become the first Premier League club to partner with a mobile app which allows fans to vote on selected club decisions.
Hammers supporters across the world will be able to take part in exclusive polls and share their opinions if they purchase fan tokens from the start of the 2019-20 season.
European giants Paris St Germain and Juventus have already made similar agreements with Socios.com, a blockchain-based fan engagement platform.
Press Association Sport understands West Ham will give fans an opportunity to decide ‘soft issues’, such as voting for the man of the match in certain matches and to determine which players television cameras focus on during warm-ups.
“West Ham United’s presence on Socios.com’s state-of-the-art platform will further give us the ability to interact and get direct feedback in real-time from our global fanbase which will be important to our future fan engagement strategy,” West Ham digital and commercial director Karim Virani said in a statement.
“We’re very excited about the possibilities Socios.com offers us to give fans the best experience possible, whether they live within a mile of the stadium or thousands of miles away.”
Fans will have a greater influence the more tokens they hold, while the value of tokens will fluctuate based on market demand.
Alexandre Dreyfus, CEO and founder of Socios.com, expects to work with other Premier League clubs in the future.
“Having a club like West Ham adopt fan voting is a big step in realising our goal of building the world’s biggest global football community and marketplace for football fans, alongside demonstrating that blockchain and cryptocurrency is the trusted technology of the mainstream,” he said.
“We will be announcing more European partners very soon, with more Premier League clubs set to follow West Ham’s lead in creating the best-in-class fan engagement.”
