The world is preparing for the most-awaited FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar. While the tournament is yet to kick off, football lovers have been seen analyzing and predicting the teams that could make it to the golden trophy.
Even more interesting are the documentaries and biographies of our favorite players, which can be seen on various digital platforms, including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and many more. Surviving in this digital world might be difficult for some, but FIFA, the international football governing body, has convinced football enthusiasts that it can rival the best of OTTs with a brand-new launch exclusively for football-related content and that too, for free.
FIFA+, a free, ad-funded platform launching today as an app and website, will include live soccer games from domestic leagues around the world, as well as archive clips and games, original content in the form of documentaries, and a matching center for results and stats. FIFA is headquartered in Europe and oversees the World Cup.
Live World Cup matches, on the other hand, will not be streamed. According to FIFA president Gianni Infantino, FIFA+ would “accelerate the democratization” of the sport by “underpinning FIFA’s basic objective of expanding and developing football globally.” The games will feature 11,000 women’s matches from 100 FIFA member associations.
Live coverage will range from Europe’s top divisions to previously unseen competitions in men’s, women’s, and youth football from around the world. From the start, 1,400 matches will be live-streamed each month on FIFA Plus, with the number gradually increasing. The number of live games will increase to 40,000 every year.
Because of current TV and streaming rights deals, these will primarily be limited to locations with lesser-known and neglected international leagues in countries like Angola, Denmark, Mexico, and Poland.
FIFA+ also features a slew of previously unseen competitions in men’s, women’s, and youth soccer from around the world, totaling over 2,000 hours of archival video. More than 2,500 videos dating back to the 1950s will be available when FIFA Plus launches, with many more to come.
As of now, the Over-the-Top platform will be available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and French across individual devices, which might be extended to other connected devices and broadcasting channels. For the followers’ convenience, the global soccer chassis plans to add up to Mandarin, Bahasa, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Hindi, and Arabic by June.
The site is now free, based on an ad-supported Video on Demand (AVOD) model, but there may be a membership cost in the future. “We’ll be strategically extending—so we will be potentially going into gaming, social community, and potentially subscription depending on where this goes and where the industry disruption heads,” Burr said.
The FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia, which will be held in July 2024, will be fixated next. Burr says that it is FIFA’s “fiduciary duty” to grow this area of the game that is void to the extent that “nobody’s filling it” and that FIFA+ will be the “market-leading women’s football digital platform”.
In “Ronaldinho: The Happiest Man in the World” and “Captains,” a documentary about the world’s most famous football player, and a series about six captains, Luka Modric (Croatia), Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Gabon), Brian Kaltak (Vanuatu), and Andre Blake (Jamaica), as they lead their countries.
“HD Cutz,” a documentary series with Sheldon Edwards, a celebrity barber, discussing food, fashion, music, and soccer; “Dani Crazy Dream,” a docuseries following Dani Alves, the most decorated player in history, as he tries to qualify for the 2022 World Cup;
“Golden Boot,” a series on the greatest World Cup goal scorers; and “Icons,” a series featuring five of the biggest game-changers in women’s soccer, comprising Wendie Renard, Lucy Bronze, Asisat Oshoala, Carli Lloyd, and Sam Kerr.
The website also features the inside story of some of the greatest talent production lines in world soccer under the title “Academies.”
Edited By : Khushi Thakur
Published By: Shubham Ghulaxe
