La Liga reveals plans to incorporate Web3 technology into the league from 2023

The Spanish La Liga, one of the world’s most-watched football leagues in Europe, has disclosed that it seeks to take advantage of the Web3 technology next year.

The Spanish top flight has announced plans to implement a system of tracking balls used to score goals using Web3 technology. The system, which will be made available by Gol-Ball, a third-party firm, will validate these balls to ensure fans can acquire them via official markets or sweepstakes.

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The system is scheduled to begin operation after the Qatar World Cup has ended. The system will be used to recover balls used in each match and to distinguish particular balls used to score each one of the goals—a practice that was non-existent before as the balls were not separated or treated as anything special. 

Samuel Eto’o, the Barca legend and La Liga’s ambassador, highlighted the importance of this new scheme. Eto said:

“Throughout my career as a footballer you would normally be given a ball only after scoring a hat-trick, but you were never sure it was the ball you actually scored any of the goals with. If we had been able to identify the goal-scoring ball, my colleagues and I would have wanted all of them.”

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Why La Liga wants to validate goal-scoring balls

According to the official press statement released, La Liga explained that these goal-scoring balls would be available to all fans via “fan engaging mechanisms” to be revealed later on the 8th of January.

This signals the creation of subsidiary markets for these balls, which could be shared with fans through sweepstakes or paid participation, opening new engagement and revenue avenues for the league.

About this new link, Oscar Mayo, executive general director of La Liga, declared:

“It’s a bridge between the real world and the digital world. We pride ourselves at La Liga for innovating and offering our fans ways to feel more emotionally connected to their favourite clubs and idols.”

Andres Rodriguez, Gol-Ball’s CEO, also declared that fans could have these balls as a digital representation, hinting at the issuance of NFTs (non-fungible tokens). La Liga has also been involved in the launch of NFT-based platforms before, establishing a partnership with Dapper Labs in October for the release of La Liga Golazos, a memorable moment NFT platform.

“We replaced the auction and bidding of a few with the collaboration of many. We are proud that all our fans can have access to these collectibles, both in its physical and digital form. This is what Web3 inspires: If we contribute a little between many, we can achieve much more than when one single person puts it all”, says Andres Rodriguez,

According to Gol-Ball™’s CTO Fede Giuliani, who has experience in four unicorns: “The concept of the goal ball did not exist. We invented and registered it through a series of patent applications that will allow fans around the world to have access to this new collectible. We have called it Gol-Ball™.”

This is an impressive development for the football sector in the world. La Liga has taken the first step. Perhaps, other popular leagues could do this or similar projects to increase fan engagement if it is successful.

It remains to be seen how blockchain technology can influence major international football competitions like the ongoing World Cup, Euros, Copa America, and Africa Cup of Nations. Crypto investors who are football fans will look forward to purchasing balls used to score memorable goals for their favourite teams or by their favourite players.