FIFA Kicks Up New Digital Service

World soccer organization FIFA has launched a new digital platform that is expected to stream the equivalent of 40,000 live games in 2022.

The free ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) FIFA Plus service, which will be available across all web and mobile devices in five languages — English, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish — will stream 1,400 matches monthly taken from 100 member associations across all six soccer confederations, including 11,000 women’s matches, according to the organization.

Ahead of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 — which will be televised in the U.S. by Fox Sports and Telemundo — FIFA Plus will feature every past FIFA World Cup and FIFA Women’s World Cup match on film, totaling more than 2,000 hours of archived content. Overall, the FIFA Plus archive will launch with more than 2,500 videos dating back to the 1950s, with many more to come throughout the year.

In addition, FIFA Plus will also provide full-length documentaries, docuseries, talk shows and shorts in 11 languages, telling stories from the local grassroots to national teams and of footballing heroes past and present from more than 40 countries, FIFA said.

“FIFA Plus 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,” FIFA president Gianni Infantino said in a statement. “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 democratization of football and we are delighted to share it with fans.”