The Qatar World Cup this year begins the first ever NFT football collection from FIFA. Called FIFA+ Collect for digital collectibles, this collection will comprise famous soccer goals, moments, players and more themes. The tournament is scheduled for November 20 – December 18, 2022 with a total of 64 matches to be played across eight venues. This will be the first Arab football world cup. The NFT collection from FIFA comes after the popular basketball NFT venue, the NBA Top Shot.

The first FIFA NFT collection – the Genesis pack – has gone live on the website. This collection is a pack of iconic highlights derived from the legacy of the tournament, and priced at $4.99 the pack carries three random highlights. The Genesis drop has been claimed by 135,540 collectors so far. Some of the highlights of the pack include famous goals such as:

France scoring against Spain in 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany, goal by Franck Ribery.

The Cameroon goal against Colombia by Roger Milla in the 1990 World cup.

The journey to greatness always starts with one moment.@FIFAPlusCollect gives you the opportunity to feed your fandom like never before with digital collectibles of the most unforgettable moments in football.

Join the FIFA+ Community today https://t.co/OUT2RQIeYt pic.twitter.com/6ugCcVVKNj

— FIFAPlusCollect (@FIFAPlusCollect) September 2, 2022

This tournament promises action from afar. The football stadiums in Qatar designed for the World Cup are said to be ultra-futuristic – as this video blog reports – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LTheNrvAM4

FIFA’s NFT platform is built in partnership with Algorand, which is also the official blockchain partner for the tournament. Digital collectibles at the FIFA NFT website will include “from the greatest game moments to the most iconic FIFA World Cup and FIFA Women’s World Cup art and imagery.” The fees on Algorand are low, speed is good, and its POS consensus is environment-friendly.

The NFT collection will add more glitter and probably digital gold to the usual sports memorabilia and stickers that have been collected by fans for decades. To begin with, there will be an initial collection, as well as exclusive and limited-edition collections.

For NFT collectors and sports fans as well as investors of memorabilia, this is the chance to get hold of the first World Cup NFTs. These NFTs are likely to be put for trade on marketplaces like OpenSea or crypto exchanges. For FIFA this will translate into royalties, and for collectors another avenue to invest or add more glitz to their collections to be passed down to future generations.

As for technology, the next World Cup may go for a presence in the Metaverse, but it’s too early to speculate.