Celtic Park was not kind to AC Milan on Friday. The Scottish club took a commanding 2-0 lead into halftime of their pre-season friendly, with goals from Camilo Durán in the 11th minute and James Forrest in the 28th putting the Italian giants firmly on the back foot.

Two clubs, two very different digital strategies

AC Milan has been one of European football’s most aggressive adopters of blockchain technology. The club launched its $ACM fan token back in January 2021 through a partnership with Socios.com and Chiliz, the platform that has become the de facto home for sports fan tokens.

Fan tokens are digital assets that give holders voting rights on minor club decisions and access to exclusive rewards.

Milan didn’t stop there. In July 2025, the club extended its partnership with Bitpanda, the European crypto exchange, to feature the Vision (VSN) token. Bitpanda serves as a back-of-shirt sponsor, meaning millions of viewers see a crypto brand every time Milan takes the pitch.

Celtic, by contrast, has no fan token, no NFT collection, and no blockchain partnership of any kind as of mid-2026.

The fan token play: revenue driver or distraction

The $ACM token gives Milan a direct revenue stream and a mechanism to deepen engagement with its global fanbase, particularly in markets where attending matches in person isn’t realistic. The Bitpanda partnership adds another layer, tying the club’s brand to a regulated European exchange.

The tokens tend to correlate more with broader crypto sentiment than with on-pitch performance, which makes a halftime score in Glasgow largely irrelevant to $ACM’s price.

What Celtic’s absence tells us

The European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework has introduced new compliance requirements that make launching and maintaining fan tokens more complex and expensive.