FIFA, the international football federation, has announced that Algorand will become its official blockchain platform. The new partner will also be sponsoring FIFA’s upcoming Men’s World Cup in Europe and North America, as well as achieving Official Sponsor status at next year’s Women’s World Cup.
Algorand is a blockchain technology company that has a strong focus on sustainability. It claims it has been carbon negative since 2021.
Besides FIFA, it has worked with 2000 other entities, including governments and DeFi applications. In terms of real world applications, the Algorand public blockchain is used by the Italian copyright association SIAE, in a commodity tokenization platform in which Santander is a participant, and by ClimateTrade, the carbon trading solution used by several large enterprises.
The partnership includes Algorand providing an official blockchain-supported wallet solution. As such, future non-fungible token (NFT) collections or blockchain-based initiatives, including ticketing, will be supported by the platform.
Crypto.com was announced in March of this year as one of the official sponsors for the Men’s World Cup as the exclusive cryptocurrency trading platform. However, you’d imagine that both Crypto.com and Algorand would want their wallet to be official wallet, but it seems Algorand won on that front.
Furthermore, since Algorand’s sponsorship scope is limited to North America and Europe in this year’s tournament, there is likely another blockchain partner in Asia and potentially Latin America.
“This announcement is an exciting moment for FIFA, as it officially enters into the world of blockchain and the opportunities this presents across various applications,” said FIFA Chief Business Officer Romy Gai. “At FIFA, we must constantly strive to identify and explore the most cutting-edge, sustainable and transparent means of increasing revenues to continue to support global football development. Algorand is clearly a forward looking, innovative partner that can help us achieve these goals.”
Meanwhile, China-based AntChain, the blockchain subsidiary of AliPay’s owner Ant Group, signed a five year global partnership with UEFA.
Other blockchain-based developments in the football industry include cryptocurrency exchange Bitso’s sponsorship of Brazilian team Sao Paulo, Bybit’s sponsorship of the Argentinian National Football team, and the race for Premier League football NFT rights, which could be worth up to $590 million.12All suggestions
