England's top soccer league is now tangled in a crypto investigation. On Tuesday, reports emerged that the U.K.'s National Crime Agency (NCA) had frozen £10 million (around $13.5 million) held in a bank account linked to the Premier League.
The Sun first reported the freeze, disclosing that it stems from an inquiry involving Sorare, the Paris-based crypto fantasy sports platform. The NCA has not specified what crimes it is investigating. According to the news report, the agency is examining possible links between Sorare's licensing payments to the Premier League and alleged criminal activity by third parties. Authorities froze the funds to prevent them from being transferred while the probe continues.
Sorare has pushed back hard. 'Sorare is not the subject of an investigation by the National Crime Agency. The freezing order reported in the press concerns funds held in an account which does not belong to Sorare, and Sorare is not a party to those proceedings,' a company spokesperson told Fortune. Sorare CEO Nicolas Julia called the initial reports 'inaccurate' on social media.
The timing matters. The investigation surfaced almost three months after the Financial Conduct Authority, Britain's markets regulator, warned soccer clubs — especially Premier League clubs — against putting fans' money at risk through sponsorship deals with firms lacking U.K. authorization, including crypto companies. 'Clubs should not let unauthorized financial firms exploit that loyalty by putting potentially dodgy products in front of millions of fans,' said Lucy Castledine, the FCA's director of consumer investments, in a June press release.
Sorare built its business on blockchain-based digital player cards during the NFT boom, raising $680 million in a 2021 SoftBank-led round that valued the company at $4.3 billion. In 2023, it signed a four-year, $140 million partnership with the Premier League to release digital cards for all 20 clubs, with clubs receiving payments tied to card usage. The frozen sum is the first such payment Sorare made under that deal, which wrapped up at the close of the 2025–26 season. Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé and Serena Williams all served as paid ambassadors for the platform.
Sorare also faces a separate prosecution from the U.K. Gambling Commission, which charged the company in September 2024 with offering gambling services without an operating license — the regulator's first case against a blockchain-based platform under the 2005 Gambling Act. That trial is set for next June, and Sorare denies wrongdoing.
The numbers come first: a $140 million sponsorship, a $4.3 billion valuation, and now a $13.5 million freeze sitting in legal limbo. For a league that built its global brand on ironclad broadcast contracts and blue-chip sponsors, the episode is a reminder that crypto capital does not carry the same guarantees as a bank wire from a Fortune 500 firm.
Capital rewards clear rules, and Britain's regulators have made clear that crypto sponsorship deals will get scrutiny, not a pass. Whatever the outcome of the NCA's inquiry, the lesson for boardrooms on both sides of the Atlantic is the same: chasing blockchain hype without regulatory clarity can freeze more than just funds — it can freeze reputations.
