One Future Football (1FF) today announced the launch of the world’s first global, digital football league.
The competition, which kicks-off on 23rd June 2023, will see over 250 players from 12 clubs around the world compete in this groundbreaking competition, where all teams and athletes have been created for the online space. The clubs are owned and operated by real corporations - such as football media company Football Co and Indian multinational conglomerate JSW - whilst additionally having a number of celebrity owners from the world of sport and media including Jesse Lingard, Patrice Evra, Chris Smalling and Kamaru Usman.
Like stadium football 1FF is run in the same way, with teams playing each other home and away in a league format, culminating in play-offs and a final. However, it is different to its real world cousin in a number of ways, from how matches are consumed to the league’s clubs and players, who have all been specifically designed and created to inspire and engage fans in each market from within their virtual space.
In addition, supporters will have more say in the sport they love than ever before as unique features allow them to own and impact their teams and footballers - determining everything from which brands should sponsor their team, to the athletes’ training regimes and even who they sign for.
A 1FF season lasts three months, with 11 weeks of regular rounds (two per week), followed by a Finals Week of play-offs and The Final. In keeping with attracting and engaging younger audiences, matches are streamed for free via eight-to-ten-minute highlight packages across social media.
The league is powered by two unique artificial intelligence (AI) engines - one in-game and one outside of the field of play. The former determines thousands of outcomes per match, representing every touch, pass, shot, foul and clearance as the teams battle it out on the pitch.
The latter (a narrative engine) establishes real world situations for players outside of match days - positive scenarios like visiting charitable causes to more controversial ones like teammates fighting in training. These give 1FF a whole ecosystem for fans to fully immerse themselves in.
Pete Davis, CEO and Co-Founder of One Future Football, said, “The 1FF team has been working incredibly hard to build a tangible league that appeals to supporters all around the world - wherever they are from. As football fans we see the trends of young people not being able to connect with the sport, owing to factors such as the inaccessibility and rising costs of supporting a stadium football team. When you also consider football’s increasing social and environmental impact on the planet we believed something had to be done, otherwise there is a real risk of losing a whole generation of fans. This is why we created One Future Football.”
He continued, “We’re not trying to replace stadium football - we are confident we’ve built a world where football fans feel a real sense of ownership, that their decisions make a difference and they are actually being heard. We’ve created clubs with the DNA of their local regions in mind and designed footballers who fans can identify with and be inspired by. We believe One Future Football will help young fans fall in love with the game. This truly has the potential to be the future of football and we’re excited for the season to kick-off later this month.”
One Future Football teams are geographically representative of the new global football audience all around the world rather than focusing only on the traditional European powerhouse countries. The 12 teams are FC Angelenos (Los Angeles, USA), Bengaluru Phoenix FC (Bengaluru, India), Bondi FC (Sydney, Australia), Clube de Futebol Brasil Amazônia (Manaus, Brazil), Club Sportivo Palermo (Buenos Aires, Argentina), Inter Nusantara FC (Jakarta, Indonesia), Manhattan FC (New York, USA), Naija United FC (Lagos, Nigeria), Paris St-Denis FC (Saint-Denis, France), Riyadh Stars FC (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia), South London United FC (London, England) and Tokyo Youth Club (Tokyo, Japan). Each club has their own bespoke crest, kit and player roster as well as ownership from a-list talent who will lend their own expertise and access to their audiences.
With pre-season games available to view from 14th June 2023 - and the first round of league matches kicking-off on Friday 23rd June - fans can be excited knowing that they can savour the beautiful game long after many of the major world soccer competitions have packed-up for the season. Anyone hungry to watch the matches, choose their club and discover more about 1FF can do so by visiting 1FF.com and following OneFutureFootball (TikTok, Facebook, Twitch) and 1FFOfficial (Instagram, Twitter, YouTube) on social media.