Laliga, the leading soccer league in Spain, has announced that it will be one of the first organizations to reveal the balls used to score goals using blockchain technology.
The foundation has already partnered with Gol-Ball, a third-party company, to implement the system.
The system, slated for use after the Qatar World Cup, will be used to track each ball used in each match and to adjudicate which ball was used to score each goal, something that had not been done before, as each football was rotated and mixed with other balls.
On this matter, “Samuel Eto’o”, “Laliga” ambassador and a former Cameroonian footballer, stated the importance of this new technology, as he stated:
All my life as a footballer, you've usually been given a ball for a hat-trick, but you're never sure it's the ball you actually scored any of the goals with.
If we can pinpoint the goal-scoring ball, that would be great
Blockchain ball tracking:
In a press release on December 1, Laliga clarified that these goal-scoring balls will be made available to all fans via fan engagement mechanisms that will be unveiled in January.
This alludes to the creation of a secondary market for these balls, which could be distributed to fans via raffle or paid participation, opening up new areas of participation and revenue for the company.
Oscar Mayo, Executive General Manager of Laliga, announced:
We create a bridge between the real world and the digital world.
At LALIGA we pride ourselves on innovating and offering ways for our fans to feel more emotionally connected to their favorite clubs.
Gol-Ball CEO Andres Rodriguez also announced that fans will be able to get these balls as a digital representation, hinting at the release of NFT (non-fungible tokens).
Laliga has also been involved in launching several NFT-based platforms before, partnering with Dapper Labs in October to release an NFT platform that immortalizes memorable shots.
