FIFA announces its own streamer

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International soccer organization FIFA is entering the streaming game — with a service called FIFA+ (what else).

FIFA, which is short for Fédération Internationale de Football Association, serves as a governing body for international association “European” football (what is known as soccer in the U.S.), futsal and beach soccer.

Plans call for the service, which will be free and ad-supported for now, to stream around 40,000 matches per year, including about 1,400 per month at launch. It will feature games from 100 of the organization’s member clubs, including both men’s and women’s matches.

FIFA says the service may eventually transition to a paid membership model.

In addition, the service will offer a comprehensive archive of all women’s and men’s games recorded on video as well as original series that include talk shows, shorts as well as documentaries and docuseries.

The service is launching globally on a myriad of devices with English, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish versions initially. Arabic, Mandarin, Bahasa, Korean, Japanese, Italian and Hindi editions will launch in June 2022.

The service will not, however, include the 2022 FIFA World Cup from Qatar later this year.

Like most sports broadcasting rights, FIFA’s deals with broadcasters around the world can be complex and are often broken out by linear TV and streaming. In the U.S., Telemundo and Fox snapped up the rights through 2026 back in 2015. Prior to that ESPN and Univision had been longtime partners.