UK Bitcoin (BTC) payments adoption has just recruited a new player. Oxford City Football Club is expected to be the first National League football club to accept BTC matchday payments when the season begins on August 6.
Fans will be able to use Bitcoin to buy tickets, food and drinks at Oxford’s RAW Charge Stadium via the Lightning Network. Traditional payment methods such as cash and cards are still accepted.
Oxford City Football Club (OCFC) currently plays for the South of the Nations League, the sixth tier of English football. The club has a multi-year partnership with Isle of Man-based bitcoin company CoinCorner. CoinCorner will be the club’s shirt back sponsor and release a limited edition Oxford City FC Bolt Card to commemorate the occasion.
As part of a partnership between CoinCorner and the team, known locally as the basketball team, they will feature the BTC logo on the back of their game day jerseys. CoinCorner is also the Official Match Sponsor for the opening match of Oxford City Football Club (OCFC) on August 6th.
On the same day, Real Bedford, Peter McCormack’s pro-bitcoin football club, will accept bitcoin for matchday tickets. However, Bedford play in a lower local league, the Spartan South Midlands League.
Danny Scott, CEO of CoinCorner, explained that OCFC is “the first adopter of bitcoin payments in the National Coalition.” Scott continued:
“We believe this move will set a trend in the non-league and football league sectors as the digital currency establishes itself as the new normal for UK sports fans and event spectators.”
Bitcoin advocate and founder of Oxford Bitcoin meetup OxBit, Coach Carbon explained to Cointelegraph how the deal came about. In December 2022, OCFC hosts the Bitcoin Players Winter Cup Festival – a Bitcoin-centric football day.
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Since then, OxBit has hosted various meetups on club grounds, and Carbon has continued to advocate for city-wide bitcoin adoption. Carbon forged a relationship with the football club’s new commercial director and shared “a lot of informal discussions about engaging and helping the community through events and education”.
“Once the football club understood and could see the impact CoinCorner could have on Bitcoin education and adoption, a three-call was arranged and things took off from there.”
At the club, Oxford City FC football director Justin Merritt explained: “More than 3.3 million people in the UK now own bitcoin – an increase of around 1 million in the last year alone.”
Cointelegraph reported in June 2021 that as many as 2.3 million Britons own BTC, according to a report by the FCA, while a Coinbase report expanded that number to as many as a third of Britons are curious about cryptocurrencies . Merritt continued:
“People are not compelled to use our new technology, but we believe that over time payments via bitcoin will become the new normal for British football.”
Across the UK, grassroots bitcoin adoption is growing, and Edinburgh is looking forward to hosting a bitcoin conference this October.
