Argentine Football Association partners with metaverse startup after World Cup win

Quick Take

  • The Argentine Football Association has partnered with metaverse startup Upland. 
  • The move marks the AFA’s first entry into the metaverse, offering fans digital meetups and collectible opportunities.

The Argentine Football Association (AFA) is partnering with metaverse startup Upland as one of its first entries into web3 fan engagement. 

The deal includes digital collectibles and a virtual gathering space for AFA's fanbase.

"The Argentine Professional League has long awaited opportunities to take advantage of emerging technologies to enhance our League's fan experience," AFA President Claudio Fabian Tapia in a statement. "This agreement allows us to partner with the best creators of technology and new digital products and thus generate a new source of income for all participating clubs."

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Upland is a game that involves buying and selling virtual land tied to real-world places, with over 3 million accounts registered. The startup behind the game raised $18 million in a Nov. 2021 round led by Animoca Brands that valued it at $300 million at the time.

The fan token tied to Argentina's team had surged throughout the World Cup but crashed soon after Argentina's victory, as The Block previously reported.


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About Author

MK Manoylov has been a reporter for The Block since 2020 — joining just before bitcoin surpassed $20,000 for the first time. Since then, MK has written nearly 1,000 articles for the publication, covering any and all crypto news but with a penchant toward NFT, metaverse, web3 gaming, funding, crime, hack and crypto ecosystem stories. MK holds a graduate degree from New York University's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program (SHERP) and has also covered health topics for WebMD and Insider. You can follow MK on X @MManoylov and on LinkedIn.

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