FIFA – the international governing body of football – has announced the launch of an ad-supported streaming service. The service – FIFA+ – will stream the equivalent of 40,000 live games per year from 100 member associations. The football association has said it will offer live coverage from “Europe’s topflight leagues” – including the Danish Superliga, Polish Ekstraklasa, and Slovak Fortuna Liga – as well as previously unserved competitions from men’s and youth’s football. The service will also stream 11,000 women’s matches per year.
Additionally, “for the first time ever” football fans have access to every FIFA World Cup and FIFA Women’s World Cup ever recorded on camera – a total of over 2000 hours of content. The football association has stated that FIFA+ will not be streaming matches from World Cup Qatar 2022. The offering includes highlights, goals, interactive games (such as votes, quizzes and fantasy games) as well as news and tournament information.
FIFA+ also launched with original content in the form of documentaries, docuseries, talk shows and shorts, telling stories “from local grassroots to national teams and footballing heroes past and present”. Among the exclusive titles included in the offering is Ronaldinho: The Happiest Man in the World, Croatia: Defining a Nation, Dani Crazy Dream, and Icons. The football association has said the content will be localised in five language initially – English, German, French, Spanish and Portuguese – and then offer Mandarin, Bahasa, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Arabic and Hindi as language options in the months following.
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.”
