UK court freezes $13.5 million linked to Premier League club payments under Sorare licensing deal

A London magistrates’ court froze a $13.5 million account tied to payments from Sorare, the digital collectibles platform that licensed Premier League player cards. The National Crime Agency (NCA) is now looking at whether the money is linked to criminal activity by third parties, which puts a familiar high-risk question back on the table: when football clubs, crypto-adjacent platforms, and financial intermediaries all sit in the same payment chain, who gets to explain the source of funds?

1. The freezing order was obtained from Westminster Magistrates' Court in London in January 2025. The blocked funds cannot be moved while the NCA investigates their possible connection to criminal activity by third parties. No charges have been brought against the Premier League.
2. The regulator suspects the money may have been paid by Sorare under its licensing agreement with the league. Sorare runs a virtual sports platform where users collect and trade digital player cards and use them in contests tied to real-world athletic performance.
3. Sorare is already facing a separate UK gambling case. The UK Gambling Commission previously accused Sorare of providing gambling services to British users without a licence. Sorare denies that its products are gambling, and the case is scheduled for June 2027.
4. The Premier League announced a four-year licensing agreement with Sorare in January 2023 covering digital player cards for all 20 clubs. The deal was valued at about 120 million pounds sterling ($162 million).
5. The NCA freeze is separate from the Gambling Commission case, so the account restriction may have nothing to do with Sorare’s licensing dispute. The move also lands in a broader UK crackdown mood: in June, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) sent clubs letters warning them not to enter sponsorship deals with financial firms that cannot legally operate in the country.

There is also a wider payment-risk angle here for anyone working with UK football clubs. In August, Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, became a Chelsea sponsor and put its logo on the team shirts, while OKX has a sponsorship deal with Manchester City. Separately, in January, the UK Cryptoasset Business Council (UK CBC) said the country’s biggest banks block about 40% of payments to crypto exchanges, including Coinbase, Kraken, OKX, Gemini and Bitpanda.