The world football governing body FIFA has launched a new digital platform to connect football fans across the globe with the game and for free.
Known as FIFA+, it will provide access to live football matches from every corner of the world, interactive games, news, tournament information and video content delivering global storytelling around the men’s and women’s game and much more. FIFA says it is the first sports federation ever to offer such an extensive streaming and content experience to its fans.
Commenting on the development, FIFA President Gianni Infantino said: “FIFA+ represents the next step in our vision to make football truly global and inclusive, and it underpins FIFA’s core mission of expanding and developing football globally.
“This project represents a cultural shift in the way different types of football fans want to connect with and explore the global game and has been a fundamental part of my Vision 2020-2023. It will accelerate the democratisation of football and we are delighted to share it with fans”.
By the end of this year, FIFA+ will be streaming the equivalent of 40,000 live games per year from 100 member associations across all six confederations, including 11,000 women’s matches. FIFA+ will offer live coverage from Europe’s topflight leagues to previously unserved competitions from around the world in men’s, women’s and youth football. From launch, 1,400 matches will be live streamed monthly on FIFA+, rising rapidly.
Ahead of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, FIFA+ will be home to every FIFA World Cup and FIFA Women’s World Cup match ever recorded on camera, totalling more than 2,000 hours of archive content. For the first time ever, this entire archive will be available to fans. Fans will have the ability to watch full-match replays, highlights, goals and magical moments all in one place. The FIFA+ archive will launch with more than 2,500 videos dating back to the 1950s, with many more to come throughout the year.
The Match Centre will allow football fans to immerse themselves in football data across 400 men’s competitions and 65 women’s competitions. A daily feed of news from around the world of men’s and women’s football will also complement and offer additional updates. Throughout the year, fans will enjoy interactive games including votes, quizzes, fantasy games and predictors.
FIFA+ will also provide content delivering global storytelling around the men’s and women’s game. It will feature full-length documentaries, docuseries, talk shows and shorts – localised into 11 languages, telling stories from local grassroots to national teams and footballing heroes past and present from more than 40 countries.
The content on the FIFA+ platform will continue to grow and evolve in 2022, providing fresh, globally relevant as well as localised content across the year.
From launch, FIFA+ will be available across all web and mobile devices, and soon also across a range of connected devices. It will be available in five language editions (English, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish), with an additional six languages to follow in June 2022.
Source: https://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2022/04/13/fifa-launches-digital-platform/