Watford's sponsorship deal with Stake.com, that was paid for with cryptocurrency, has been described as a sign of crypto "making it onto the big stage".

Meanwhile, Scott Duxbury, the club's chairman and CEO said the deal, understood to be worth an initial £5million per season with performance-based bonuses, was indicative of their "commitment to innovation".

On the announcement of the deal, he said: “We are thrilled to welcome Stake as our principal shirt sponsor ahead of the 2021/22 season. This will be an extremely exciting campaign for the club as we return to the Premier League and we couldn’t be happier to join with a partner who match our ambitious outlook and commitment to innovation in order to achieve success.”

Paul Roach, Co-Founder of crypto wallet and payments platform Zumo, said he expected deals like this to become more commonplace.

"We may be early on in the crypto game, but this is just one more sign of crypto making it onto the big stage," he said. 

"It's great to see crypto finding this level of mainstream adoption, and we can surely expect to see a lot more of these kinds of deals in the business-to-business arena. 

"Sports is a hot space for the crypto industry, and we’re starting to see a lot of high-profile sponsorship deals across football, rugby, and Formula 1 to name just a few. Clearly, crypto and sports is something that's not going away."

Some supporters are not pleased to see another gambling company's name on the front of the shirt, the club's recent financial report, which showed losses of £35million during the relegation season, suggests that the significantly higher sponsorship revenue brought in by gambling firms was nigh-on impossible to turn down.

The government are expected to ban gambling sponsors in the near future.