Chelsea legends John Terry and Ashley Cole are facing an non-fungible token (NFT) legal storm, with the Premier League taking legal advice after their trophy was used in digital assets promoted by the former team-mates.
This latest craze in the cryptocurrency world has seen footballers past and present jump on the bandwagon, allowing them to make money from digital creations. NFTs are approximately sold at 0.05 Ethereum (ETH), which is currently priced at £93.79, plus an additional transaction fee.
Terry, who now works as a consultant at Chelsea at an academy level, has been promoting cartoons of baby apes on his Twitter page, which includes illustrated images of the different trophies he has won throughout his career.
One of the titles that surrounds the cartoon ape is the Premier League trophy, which is protected by its trademark.
John Terry (left) and Ashley Cole (right) are facing an NFT legal storm over the use of the Premier League trophy in their baby ape cartoon images shared on social media
Terry has been promoting NFTs on his Twitter page which include cartoons of baby apes alongside illustrated versions of the Premier League trophy, which is protected by a trademark
Use of its image requires a licensing agreement with the Premier League if it is used in any commercial venture.
Terry, along with other Premier League greats including former Chelsea and England team-mate Cole, have been endorsing the ‘Ape Kids Club’ NFTs on Twitter.
An NFT is a non-interchangeable unique unit of data that is tracked on a blockchain to prove its authenticity. These collectable units of data can be sold for large sums of money and can represent anything online.
The Ape Kids Club NFTs are an off-shoot of the ‘Bored Ape Yacht Club’ that has risen to prominence in the United States and has seen the likes of Eminem spend $461,868 (£342,000) on a digital illustration of the cartoon ape.
Current Chelsea full back Reece James has also tweeted about his own ‘Mutant Ape’ acquisition while Terry has namechecked the likes of Jack Wilshere, Willian and PSG’s Marco Verratti while promoting the NFT extensively on Twitter.
According to the Telegraph, Cole has not entered into a contract with the creators of ‘Ape Kids Club’ and he has only retweeted an image of an NFT that included an illustrated image of the Premier League trophy.
This has potentially landed the likes of Terry and Cole into hot water legally with the Premier League, who are now seeking advice from their lawyers over the matter.
The Premier League are seeking legal advice over the use of the trophy in the NFTs
NFTs are stored on the Blockchain and are traded in cryptocurrencies in what remains as an unregulated financial sector.
Unlike cash or gold, both fungible objects that can be easily exchanged for another object or money at the same value, where an NFT is non-fungible and can’t be exchanged in the same way.
For example, other unique artworks such as the Mona Lisa are also considered non-fungible.
NFTs can only be purchased via specific platforms, such as OpenSea and Foundation, and are to be purchased using cryptocurrency.
The two biggest and most popular cryptocurrencies are Bitcoin and Ethereum, but there are more than 5,000 different varieties in circulation.
