(Kitco News) - FIFA, the world’s largest international governing body for football, has unveiled its first major product designed with blockchain technology, ‘FIFA+ Collect.’
According to the announcement from FIFA, FIFA+ Collect is a platform that will allow fans to “own and collect FIFA World Cup™ and FIFA Women’s World Cup™ moments.”
The new service will be launching later this month. It will give football fans the opportunity to own digital collectibles that represent some of the most well-known in-game moments as well as “iconic FIFA World Cup™ and FIFA Women’s World Cup™ art and imagery.”
FIFA+ Collect will operate on the Algorand network, which was selected as the official blockchain platform of FIFA back in May for its ability to process transactions at a higher rate than many popular networks for a fraction of the cost. More than 2,000 global organizations, governments and digital-native decentralized finance (DeFi) applications have also chosen Algorand as their chain of operation.
This move from FIFA comes as the organization sees the changing landscape of fan interaction and engagement.
“Fandom is changing and football fans around the world engage with the game in new and exciting ways,” said FIFA Chief Business Officer Romy Gai. “This exciting announcement makes FIFA collectibles available to any football fan, democratizing the ability to own a part of the FIFA World Cup. Just like sports memorabilia and stickers, this is an accessible opportunity for fans around the world to engage with their favorite players, moments and more on new platforms.”
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FIFA+ Collect will be available on FIFA+, a digital platform created to help connect football fans around the world. When the platform officially launches, there will be a “range of initial collections” available to users, and additional exclusive and limited-edition collections will be released in the future.
The new platform will be available on all web and mobile devices and will support English, French and Spanish, with plans to support additional languages in the months ahead.
Football is one of the most popular sports on the planet, and this integration of blockchain technology with the well-known FIFA brand will help expose a large cohort of people from around the world to cryptos and nonfungible tokens (NFTs).
“The commitment FIFA has made to bridge to Web3 enabled by Algorand is a testament to their innovative spirit and desire to directly and seamlessly engage with football fans around the world,” said W. Sean Ford, interim CEO of Algorand.
