According to a statement on the FIFA website, the governing body plans to stream the equivalent of 40,000 matches per year across six confederations, including 11,000 women’s matches.
It goes on to say that it will house every World Cup match captured on camera, amounting to more than 2,000 hours of archive content.
The service may eventually be used by FIFA to broadcast World Cup matches at a cost.
While FIFA+ is increasingly positioning itself as a competitor to existing media companies, the governing body will also use it to promote its sponsors.
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‘There is no plan to charge a subscription fee for the service, but that doesn’t mean we won’t evolve over time if there is a value proposition that allows us to charge subscription if we step into premium rights or adopt other kinds of models,’ said FIFA director of strategy Charlotte Burr.
‘But there will always be a free experience on Fifa+,’ Burr added.
Geo-blocking can be used to restrict FIFA+ matches to specific territories.
FIFA was less clear on whether the platform will be an accessible way to watch World Cup qualifiers, which are frequently unavailable to the general public because each confederation owns those rights.
They stated that the live matches would be from competitions that had previously gone unnoticed, with 1,400 games being streamed each month at first.
From the start, a number of documentaries are available, including one on Brazil legend Ronaldinho.
FIFA may remove content from YouTube that it has previously used to broadcast classic matches and sports politics events as part of the launch.
Unlike in the past, the recent FIFA Congress in Qatar was not streamed on the long-running video sharing website.
‘We’re a bit more strategic about what goes where and when,’ said FIFA chief commercial officer Kay Madati.
