The English soccer organization FA has today announced plans for building a new non-fungible token (NFT) platform.
English FA To Launch NFTs Based On English Men’s And Women’s National Soccer Teams
As announced on their website, England’s FA has posted a Request for Proposal (RFP) to find a partner for a long-term non-fungible token platform.
The English FA (which stands for “Football Association”) is the main governing body of both amateur and professional soccer in England. It also happens to be the oldest such organization in the world.
The association now has plans to use the blockchain-based tech to create new ways for fans to interact with the English national teams and also to capture new global audiences.
The firm believes this will help generate new long-term income streams as well, which it aims to invest back into the game.
“This is an exciting opportunity for us to build a new long-term platform around the FA brands and the England teams for the benefit of the game,” said the FA commercial director Navin Singh.
The NFT platform will feature collectibles related to both the English Men’s and Women’s national teams, and the IP available to the platform partner will include player names, images, logos, and more.
“As a not-for-profit organisation, we are always exploring progressive and viable ways to capitalise on new technology to help grow our fanbase and provide much-needed investment back into the English game,” explained Singh.
“NFTs present a unique and innovative opportunity to engage with our fans through the imagery of The FA and the England Senior Men’s and Women’s teams. Any revenue generated will be for the benefit of the game, whilst importantly offering flexibility for fans to express their fandom in this new exciting medium.”
The crossover of non-fungible tokens with sports isn’t anything new. There have been several such platform releases and collaborations over the last couple of years.
For example, just earlier in the year the German top-division soccer club Hoffenheim signed an NFT partnership with Baby Doge.
A recent survey has revealed that sports fans are now ready to move beyond the hype and actually invest in NFTs. Going by this, the English FA’s move seems to have come at the correct timing.
State Of The Market
The NFT weekly trading volume has flatlined at quite a low value of around $210 million during the last couple of months, following the $1.8 billion high set back in May.
Looks like the volume has been quite low in recent weeks | Source: NonFungible
At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s price floats around $23.8k, up 3% in the past week.
The value of the crypto seems to have surged up over the last few days | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView
Featured image from TheFA.com, charts from TradingView.com, NonFungible.com