Islamic Finance Principles Assessment
Riba — Does Manchester City Fan Token involve interest?
CITY itself carries no interest-bearing mechanism in its own protocol design. The issuer's revenue comes from Fan Token Offering sales and platform fees, not lending spreads. Muslim investors will find no direct riba embedded in CITY's base structure, though the broader speculative context warrants separate scrutiny under gharar and maysir.
Assessment: Moderate Riba
Score: 60.8/100
Our methodology examines 10 criteria to evaluate how well Manchester City Fan Token avoids interest-based mechanisms.
CITY generates issuer revenue through initial Fan Token Offering sales and ongoing Socios.com platform/trading fees, not through interest-bearing loans or fixed-yield instruments. There is no disclosed treasury policy suggesting the club or Socios Technologies AG parks proceeds in interest-bearing accounts as part of the token's own design. The token's economic value is tied to platform utility and market speculation rather than any lending or interest mechanism. Based on available sources, CITY's revenue model does not itself constitute a riba-based income stream, though this says nothing about how third parties on secondary markets may use leverage.
No confirmed native staking mechanism exists for CITY itself; the 2021 Binance Launchpool programme let users stake BNB, CHZ, or BUSD (third-party assets on a centralised exchange) to farm CITY as a promotional reward, and one earlier note mentioned a possible future NFT-reward staking feature that was never confirmed as live. Chiliz Chain-level validator staking uses CHZ, not CITY, with rewards from inflation and tips. Because CITY has no disclosed fixed-rate reward structure of its own, there is no riba-like guaranteed-return mechanism to flag within the token's own design.
Gharar — How much uncertainty does Manchester City Fan Token involve?
Uncertainty in CITY is moderate: the issuer and football club are named, traceable, and reputationally accountable, which reduces gharar relative to anonymous projects. However, sparse disclosure around governance scope, the absence of confirmed native staking terms, and steep, largely unexplained price erosion increase uncertainty for investors trying to price the token's actual utility.
Assessment: Moderate Gharar (Material Uncertainty)
Score: 51.3/100
Our methodology examines 15 criteria including team transparency, audit quality, and governance.
CITY is issued by Socios Technologies AG in partnership with Manchester City FC, with Chiliz CEO Alexandre Dreyfus publicly named and possessing a two-decade track record in web and gaming ventures. This transparency is a meaningful gharar-reducer compared to anonymous-team tokens. That said, an investigation reported Dreyfus advised against certain payments to protect token market value, and UK Parliament and the ASA have raised consumer-protection and misleading-advertising concerns about football fan tokens generally, including CITY's ecosystem. Governance and control remain centralised with the issuer and club, with limited disclosure on decision-making processes.
Chiliz Chain and Fan Token contracts have been audited by Halborn (December 2022, June 2024 Dragon8 hard fork, March 2025 V2) and by CertiK for the Fan Token and Governance Contracts, though CertiK's exact audit dates are unspecified in available sources. This audit coverage meaningfully reduces smart-contract gharar. However, documentation on governance scope, reward mechanics, and any staking terms remains thin, and the absence of a clearly published risk framework for retail buyers — combined with unclear vesting-release triggers through 2029 — leaves residual uncertainty that investors should weigh carefully.
Maysir — Does Manchester City Fan Token involve gambling or speculation?
CITY is not designed as a gambling instrument; it offers genuine fan-engagement utility rather than being purely a betting vehicle. Its low, decayed market value and speculator-heavy buyer base nonetheless raise maysir-adjacent concerns in secondary markets. The token itself is not built for wagering, but its trading environment can attract speculative behaviour that Muslim investors should approach with caution.
Assessment: Maysir / Qimar (Gambling)
Score: 44.3/100
Our methodology examines 11 criteria to determine whether Manchester City Fan Token is a gambling instrument or a genuine economic tool.
CITY grants tangible, non-wagering utility: voting in binding and non-binding club polls, VIP experience access, merchandise, digital collectibles, and loyalty rewards through the Socios.com app. These are consumption and participation-based benefits tied to an actual football club, distinguishing CITY from instruments whose sole function is speculative payoff on chance outcomes. Even though some polls are minor (e.g., goal-celebration songs), the underlying design is a fan-utility product, not a betting mechanism, which matters for assessing the token's own permissibility.
Against this genuine utility, commentators note CITY's buyer base skews toward crypto speculators rather than actual supporters, and the token has lost the vast majority of its value from an all-time high near $36.9 to roughly $0.38–0.56, with a market capitalisation of only about $5–7.5 million. This trading pattern reflects heavy secondary-market speculation. Such speculative misuse by traders does not itself render the underlying token impermissible, since the protocol was not designed as a gambling product — but it does mean investors should recognise the high-volatility, low-utility-return profile before participating.
The Full 27-Point Screening
1. Legitimacy (4 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Team Transparency | 78/100 | Founder Alexandre Dreyfus and club partner Manchester City FC are both named, credentialed and traceable, though a reported allegation about advising against paying individuals is a minor integrity flag. |
| Fraud & Scam Risk | 48/100 | No direct fraud/rug-pull tied to CITY was found, but sources document reputational allegations against the issuer's CEO and regulatory/advertising concerns about fan tokens broadly. |
| Use Case Legitimacy | 40/100 | Sources confirm real fan-engagement utility exists (polls, rewards) but also document repeated criticism that the utility is insignificant relative to expectations. |
| Ethical Practices | 82/100 | The token's own design centers on football fan engagement, an industry sources do not link to any haram sector. |
Summary: The team and club partner behind CITY are publicly identifiable and traceable, though the issuer's leadership has faced reported integrity allegations and the fan-token sector has drawn regulatory scrutiny.
2. Project Operations (9 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Core Protocol Business | 78/100 | The base protocol (Chiliz Chain/Socios fan engagement) is not described as operating in a prohibited sector. |
| Transaction Fees | 50/100 | Ecosystem-wide mint/burn and buyback mechanisms are documented for Fan Tokens generally, but it is unclear from sources whether these specifically apply to CITY's own transaction fees. |
| Treasury Assets | 45/100 (low evidence) | Sources give no specific detail on CITY's or the issuer's treasury asset composition. |
| Revenue Model | 65/100 | Revenue is described as coming from token sales and platform fees, with no mention of interest-based income, but the exact revenue mechanics for CITY specifically are not detailed. |
| Transparency | 78/100 | A public whitepaper, factsheet and multiple published smart-contract audits provide meaningful transparency. |
| Governance | 28/100 | The issuer/club retains the large majority of token supply and control, with only a small public allocation, indicating centralised governance. |
| Launch Fairness | 32/100 | Only about 10% of total supply was distributed via the public Fan Token Offering, with the rest retained by the issuer, indicating an insider-heavy launch. |
| Token Distribution | 30/100 | Token distribution is heavily concentrated with the issuer/club, releasing supply gradually through an eight-year vesting schedule. |
| Speculation/Utility Ratio | 30/100 | Despite genuine utility features, sources describe the token as bought mainly by speculators rather than fans and note a dramatic price collapse from its all-time high. |
Summary: CITY offers documented but limited fan-engagement utility on an audited but heavily issuer-controlled and insider-concentrated token structure with a multi-year vesting release.
3. Financial Health (4 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Protocol Revenue | 68/100 | Revenue appears to come from token sales and platform fees rather than interest, though the precise mechanics are not fully detailed. |
| Financial Status | 32/100 | Market cap is small and the token's price has fallen sharply from its all-time high, reflecting an unstable financial trajectory. |
| Interest Assessment | 80/100 | The base CITY token itself is not described as offering lending or borrowing; such features exist only in third-party DeFi built on the broader chain, which per the judgment principle does not lower this score. |
| Audit Quality | 75/100 | Halborn conducted named audits in December 2022, June 2024, and March 2025, and CertiK is also cited as an auditor of the Fan Token and Governance contracts. |
Summary: The token has a small market capitalization and has lost the vast majority of its value from its all-time high, with no native lending or interest-based mechanism at the base protocol level and named smart-contract audits on record.
4. Token Economics (5 criteria)
| Criterion | Score | Analysis |
|---|
| Token Purpose | 55/100 | CITY carries documented utility (voting, rewards) though its practical significance is contested in sources, placing it between pure utility and pure speculation. |
| Governance Rights | 50/100 | Holders have documented but limited voting rights, mostly over minor club matters rather than substantive governance. |
| Rewards Distribution | 68/100 | Rewards are described as experiential/loyalty-based rather than fixed monetary yield, though no explicit reward formula is disclosed. |
| Speculation Controls | 45/100 | A multi-year vesting schedule limits sudden supply shocks, but overall market behavior remains highly speculative according to sources. |
| Asset Backing | 32/100 | The token has no asset backing and derives value primarily from platform utility and speculative trading, with documented steep value decline. |
Summary: CITY is a genuine but limited-scope utility token whose value is unbacked by assets and has traded in a highly speculative manner despite documented governance and reward features.
5. Staking Mechanism
Manchester City Fan Token has no native staking mechanism, so these five criteria are not applicable and are excluded from the score entirely rather than counted as zeros.
Overall Assessment: CITY presents a legitimate, non-meme fan-engagement use case with named parties and audits, but centralized token control, heavy insider retention, and pronounced speculative price behavior are the main points of Shariah-relevant concern.
Written by ThanvirFounder, Ex Director S&P Global Energy
Reviewed by Imam Omar SiddiqiShariah Scholar