Spanish Football Club Says it Has Made World-first Crypto Pro Transfer

A Spanish football club said that it has made a veteran footballer and La Liga veteran the first professional player to complete a transfer conducted entirely in crypto.

Per the Spanish football newspaper Sport, David Barral – a former Real Madrid, APOEL and Sporting de Gijón striker who has also played in the Japanese, UAE and Cypriot professional leagues – completed his transfer to the Segunda División B (Spain’s third division) team DUX Internacional de Madrid (also known as Inter Madrid) in a deal financed entirely by crypto.

In a tweet, the club stated that its deal for Barral was “made possible” thanks to its new sponsor, the Valencia-based crypto firm Criptan.

The size of the deal was undisclosed, and the club did not mention the type of cryptoasset used in the deal. As the player, now 37, had recently been released by second-tier Spanish side Racing de Santander, the fee in question was likely a signing-on fee, a common bonus afforded to free-agent transfers.

Technically, the first recorded bitcoin (BTC)-powered transfer in football history was the 2018 transfer of Ömer Faruk Kıroğlu, a Turkish footballer whose move to the amateur club Harunustaspor cost the club’s president a mere USD 521 worth of bitcoin. The president admitted the move had been a publicity stunt, but had successfully managed to get Harunustaspor mentioned in the international media “as though it were a professional club.”

The Spanish club is co-owned by DUX Gaming, a Spanish e-sports firm that sealed a deal with the football outfit on June 30 last year, renaming the team DUX Internacional de Madrid shortly after.
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