FIFA Partnership Extension: Globant announced as partner for upcoming FIFA World Cup

By Satvik Shubham

Globant to be FIFA+ supporting partner, ahead of the FIFA World Cup tournament.

The FIFA World Cup, the biggest and most watched competition in all of the world. According to FIFA themselves, the number of people that watched the previous competition was absolutely staggering as a sight, an astonishing 3.572 billion people watched it. Now, a competition that almost gets half of the planet involved needs to be complete and utter perfection under any circumstances. However, Sepp Blatter, the FIFA President at the time of the location assignation of the gargantuan tournament, admitted that it was a mistake to award Qatar the honor of hosting this year’s edition. It was well and truly a long journey to arrive at this point for the organization, and now with the World Cup less than a week away, the amount of people involved are more than ever.

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FIFA prides itself as the hub of football, being a federation that has been under much scrutiny in the past few years, it has also been home to the world stage when it comes to the beautiful game that is of monumental importance. Having headquarters in Switzerland, over the last few decades the massive organization has been eager to expand digitally, to pertain to younger audiences and the upcoming demographic. Alike to what Real Madrid President Florentino Perez said, the manner in which football is moving it will lose interest from the youth and new fans, something needs to change. While there are movements being made apart from reducing the game from its beloved 90 minutes, the progression into technology and artificial intelligence as a start-up, is also a key factor in their future goals and plans.

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Globant is a software company, founded originally in Buenos Aires, Argentina, but with a center of headquarters based in Luxembourg. The company has had a rapid rise in employees and revenue over the past decade, rising from $90 million in revenue in 2011 to an astonishing $1.2 billion in 2021. This fast growth has led to a plethora of opportunities for the South American company, one of which, most recently, has been their partnership with FIFA in broadcasting and televising rights.

The goal of the now-billion-dollar company would be to expand means of streaming through FIFA+, and what better manner to execute that ambitious plan than working within the most watched competition of all time. Globant has a goal to create new experiences and features through this engine.

Globant, a company which has expanded to every habitable continent, including Asia, with offices in India through Bengaluru and Pune.

This partnership is not only seen as a digital breakthrough for this coming competition, starting this month in less than three weeks. As well as that, it will be a partner and sponsor for the FIFA eSeries in 2023, 2024, and 2025. Expanding even further through the support of the FIFA U-17 and U-20 Women’s World Cup 2024, and the FIFA U-17 and U-20 World Cup. The company that began through humble beginnings, starting as recently as 2003, is now a partner with one of the most significant companies on the planet, attempting to make digital progressions and breakthroughs. With over 25,000 employees in the present day, it is extremely difficult to see a slow-down of these movements and progressions.

FIFA+ is a platform with a goal to be the “digital home of football”, the home of footballing content from documentaries, highlights, and more, without any subscription fee. While there are similar alternatives to such, for example, UEFATV, FIFA+ allows World Cup content with replays and highlights available from such competitions, due to the withholding of rights on the overall website, while UEFATV has access to all UEFA competitions, some of which being the Champions League and European Championship.

The author is an aspiring journalist currently studying at Michigan State University.

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