Scotland’s World Cup win highlights crypto’s absence from football’s biggest stage

Scotland just won their first World Cup match in 36 years. John McGinn buried the only goal in the 28th minute against Haiti on June 13, sending an entire nation into delirium at Gillette Stadium.

The goal that rewrote Scottish football history

McGinn’s goal ended a drought stretching back to 1990, the last time Scotland tasted victory at a World Cup. The 1-0 result over Haiti in their Group C opener also delivered Scotland’s first World Cup goal since Craig Burley found the net in 1998. At 31 years and 238 days old, McGinn became Scotland’s oldest World Cup goalscorer. He was named player of the match for his efforts. The man now has 87 international caps and 20 goals to his name.

A 25-foot mural celebrating McGinn was unveiled in his hometown of Clydebank around May 29, before the tournament even kicked off.

Scotland’s Group C schedule features Brazil and Morocco as their remaining opponents, making this opening three points potentially the difference between advancing and going home.

Where are the fan tokens?

The 2026 World Cup is the largest edition of the tournament ever staged, co-hosted across the US, Mexico, and Canada with 48 teams. And yet, the crypto industry’s footprint around it has been remarkably thin.

Cast your mind back to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Crypto.com had naming rights to stadiums. Binance was courting football partnerships. Fan token platforms like Socios were aggressively signing national teams and clubs. The total market for sports fan tokens briefly swelled into the hundreds of millions.

The fan token market has contracted significantly from those highs. Major exchanges pulled back from sports sponsorships as the 2022-2023 crypto winter forced budget cuts across the industry. Several high-profile partnerships quietly expired without renewal.

Instead, the celebration of McGinn’s goal has been entirely analog. Murals, pub singalongs, newspaper front pages.

What this means for crypto and sports

Most fan tokens offered vague governance rights, like voting on kit designs or training playlist songs, that didn’t justify their price tags. When token values dropped alongside the broader crypto market, fans who bought in felt burned.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.