Crawley Town Football Club bought by Wagmi NFT

Ziya Eren’s shares of the club were purchased by Wagmi United LLC, it was announced by the club this afternoon.

Wagmi United is a branch of Wagmi, which is a non-fungible token (NFT) and calls itself a “memecoin”.

An NFT is a “digital asset that represents real-world objects like art, music, in-game items and videos” - they are bought and sold online and are non-interchangeable.

They use the same kind of programming as cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin, but cannot be exchanged for one another.

Swindon Town's Jordan Lyden and Crawley Town's Jack Powell battle for the ball during the Sky Bet League Two match at the County Ground, Swindon

The investment group tried to purchase League Two Bradford City in December 2021, but current owner Stefan Rupp declined the offer.

It “seeks to reimagine how professional sports teams are owned and operated — building tight-knit communities of passionate fans and empowering them to take a personal stake in telling their team’s story and shaping its future”.

The group wants to create a new model of sports club ownership with the ultimate goal of getting Crawley Town to the Premier League. WAGMI are owned by American investors.

Preston Johnson, WAGMI United co-founder, said: “Crawley Town Football Club is a club with more than 125 years of rich history that we revere and respect.

"However, a conventional approach to ownership hasn’t worked, and the club is losing hundreds of thousands of pounds while its fans suffer through year after year of uninspiring results on the pitch.”

Scunthorpe United’s Mason O’Malley (left) and Crawley Town’s Sam Matthews (right) battle for the ball during the Sky Bet League Two match at the People's Pension Stadium, Crawley.

“We think the club can do better and our fans deserve better. Sports are supposed to be fun and bring communities together.

“At Crawley Town, we’re going to shake up the status quo, try out some new ideas, and build a worldwide community of fans new and old that can be excited to cheer on the Red Devils together — stretching from West Sussex to anywhere in the world with an internet connection.”

The investment group also pledged a new era of “unprecedented transparency and accountability” to supporters of Crawley.

Johnson will assume the role of club director, as will fellow co-founder Eben Smith.

They plan to allow the fans to decide whether or not they keep those roles for the following season if the team does not achieve its goal: earning promotion to League One by the end of their second season in charge.

Eben Smith said: "So if Crawley Town Football Club doesn't get promoted to League One by the end of our second season, which we think is about 50/50, then we under-performed.

“If we underperform, Crawley Town fans should get to vote on who the next directors of the club are."

The agreement with WAGMI United will see Ziya Eren, Erdem Konyar, Emre Eren and Nuhkan Ruzgar leave the board with immediate effect. In addition to Johnson and Smith, full details of a new board will be shared in due course.

The new owners will be contacting season ticket holders and sponsors to outline their plans for the future. There will also be further announcements going into the summer.