From our CEO, Jonty Barnes:

I’ve been very fortunate to have been building video games since I was 15 years old. As some of the team like to remind me, that’s over three decades working in games - you may even know or have played Black & White or Dungeon Keeper, or the games I made with my friends at Bungie in Halo and Destiny.

When I joined Formation Games, the game was rooted in Web3. It felt genuinely exciting and revolutionary to give fans a true sense of club ownership.  But as we started building, the world around us changed quickly.

We spent a lot of time, energy and money immersing ourselves in the Web3 gaming space, speaking to players, stress-testing tools, studying other games, and challenging our own assumptions. What we saw concerned us, with too many experiences built around unsustainable mechanics and the gameplay itself often felt secondary with the barrier to entry too high. The external environment reinforced our concerns: investment in Web3 games dropped sharply, with venture funding falling by 68% in early 2025. While that created real pressure on the business, our decision wasn’t just financial, it was philosophical

We believe football ownership - or at least the feeling of it - shouldn’t be reserved for the few. It should be accessible, global, and open to anyone who loves football. Moving to a free-to-play mobile game enabled us to remove barriers and bring our vision to fans wherever they are on their mobile phone.

The game players see today is the result of that journey, shaped by hard lessons, honest reflection, and an unwavering belief in the experience we set out to create. Our Founding Club Owners helped shape that change, so thank you. Your feedback through Alpha and Beta testing was invaluable, and the game has come a long way under your guidance.

That said, we still want to deliver value to those players who believed in us.

We launched Beta access in 2024 along with a private Discord channel for Founding Club Owners which continues to be available and remains a vital part of our design teams feedback loop; many of you have and continue to shape the game by telling us what you’d like to see.

Founding Club Kits in-game is yet to materialise, but you should have received physical kits, which, although not part of the original offer, we felt was an important gesture given our gratitude. These particular kits will never be reproduced, and I hope you agree the quality reflected well on our commitment.

In-game, you should have your Founding Club accolade. If you have not received your founding club accolade in-game, please let us know through contacting support through the app. From my experience working on Halo and Destiny, I’ve seen firsthand how exclusive achievements and recognition become deeply meaningful to players over time. As the community grows into the millions, we hope this becomes a lasting source of pride.

Unique Club Names, numbers, NFTs, Whitelists, and the Clubhouse were part of our Web3 vision, and will no longer be relevant. However, whilst CLUB has shifted to a free-to-play experience, we recognise some Meta Club Holders still have a passion for crypto. For those players we are delighted to collaborate with Sport.Fun. Sport.Fun uses blockchain tech for their football game and is founded by CLUB’s former Web3 Lead and Co-Founder, Adam. Here’s a few words from him:

“Hey! I’m Adam CEO of Sport.Fun… As part of our partnership with CLUB, if you hold a Meta Club, you’ll receive a bunch of perks when you join Football.Fun from a major boost to your reputation score, bonus rewards for playing. You must have held your Meta CLUB pass for at least 6 months to qualify. For those interested, you can join the football.fun Discord here and our team will be more than happy to support you.”

Finally, we’ve been working extensively on a Premium Pass. This is a common feature in gaming and is on our roadmap to go live during the 26/27 season for all Club Owners as an optional monthly subscription. We recognise the importance of our founding members, so we intend to provide all Founding Clubs with two years of the Premium Pass free of charge. The exact monthly price is still to be confirmed, but this will represent over $150 in value. The Premium Pass will provide additional in-game benefits and progression, and we’re delighted to offer it to Founding Clubs for 24 months.

Again, I want to reiterate my sincere thanks. Your feedback, support, and belief in the vision have been instrumental in getting us to this point. Thanks for believing in us, we promise to keep going and do our best to make CLUB realise its potential.