All the footballers that have brought NFTs, from John Terry to Neymar

Footballers, in many ways, are the ideal customer base when it comes to NFTs.

They’re wealthy and competitive enough to want to get ahead of the game. They must get bored away from the pitch, too, and we imagine seeking out unusual investment opportunities is a pretty good way to spend the downtime between games.

It’s no surprise that there are plenty who have branched out into the world of NFTs over recent times, but before we go any further, let’s start right at the beginning – what exactly are they?

NFT stands for non-fungible tokens, with “non-fungible” meaning that the digital items can’t be copied. Whereas some digital items, like Bitcoin, are fungible and identical in form, no two NFTs are the same.

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They’re stored in the “blockchain”, which is a kind of digital ledger which sees information contained in vast arrays of code. Over recent times NFTs have become a platform for selling just about anything digital – including, in the most high-profile cases, pictures of apes.

The likes of Paris Hilton, Jimmy Fallon, Eminem and Justin Bieber have invested in Bored Ape Yacht Club, which is a collection of 10,000 ape avatars.

Footballers have been quick to get in on the act too – these are the players who have invested in NFTs so far.

Former Chelsea and England defender John Terry has been leading the charge when it comes to NFTs, and he’s managed to convince a few others to join him along the way.

The 41-year-old put a “John Terry Ape” up for auction recently as part of his “Ape Kids Club” series, which featured a blue ape surrounded by the trophies Terry won during his Chelsea career, eventually getting bids upwards of £5,000.

It wasn’t without controversy though, with