This tiny football team just announced itself to the world by becoming the first to ever buy a player with bitcoin

Bitcoin.Thomson Reuters

• A Turkish sports club claims it is the world’s first football team to purchase a player using bitcoin.
• The player — 22-year-old Omar Faruk Kiroglu — received 0.0524 in bitcoin (approximately £385) and 2,500 Turkish Lira (£470) as part of the deal with Harunustaspor.
• It was a move to put the club on the global football map.

A little-known sports club in Turkey claims it has completed the world’s first football transfer using bitcoin.

Amateur club Harunustaspor, who competes in the Sakarya First Division Group B, paid for 22-year-old Omar Faruk Kiroglu using the cryptocurrency.

Club chairman Haldun Sehit told CNN Turk that the club completed to world first “to make a name for ourselves in the country and the world.”

Kiroglu received 0.0524 in bitcoin (approximately £385) and 2,500 Turkish Lira (£470) as part of the deal. He added: “As my chairman said, we are doing something new.”

Cryptocurrency is becoming increasingly popular in sports.

Premier League football club Arsenal recently signed a deal with cryptocurrency partner and official blockchain partner CashBet, and retired boxer Floyd Mayweather has promoted a number of initial coin offerings.