Sorare the official NFT fantasy game of Major League Soccer

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Sorare

Digital and collectable fantasy football company Sorare have partnered with Major League Soccer (MLS) to become their official non-fungible token (NFT) fantasy provider.

Paris-based Sorare is a sports blockchain company that allows players to trade official digital collectibles while ‘making cryptocurrency fun and accessible through fantasy football.’ Players can collect, trade and play fantasy football with tokens representative of the real-life performance of the professionals on the pitch.

Launched in 2018, Sorare already count Spain’s La Liga and Germany’s Bundesliga among their portfolio, and hold individual licences for clubs including Liverpool, Paris Saint-Germain and Juventus. Barcelona veteran Gerard Pique is a strategic advisor, while investors include Antoine Griezmann, Rio Ferdinand and Cesar Azpilicueta. The MLS partnership follows the opening of Sorare’s North American office at the end of last year, made possible by a Series B funding round that saw the company’s value rise to $5.7 billion AUD in September 2021.

“We are excited to welcome Major League Soccer as our latest partner. Our global community of sports fans are eager to start collecting and playing with their favourite teams and players from the league,” Sorare Chief Operating Officer Ryan Spoon said.

“From collectors to first-time NFT buyers, our NFT x fantasy model uniquely engages fans with the sport they love in a way that goes beyond just spectating, and makes them feel truly connected to each team, player and game.”Investment in Sorare’s September funding round was led by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, with their chief executive Marcelo Claure joining Sorare’s board of directors. Venture capital companies Atomico, Bessemer Venture Partners and D1 Capital Partners were among other investors, with the round netting Sorare $908 million AUDFollowing the acquisition of La Liga’s NFT rights in the same month, the company announced their intention to hold the rights for world football’s top 20 leagues by the end of 2022. Whether this could also include Australia’s A-Leagues competition remains to be seen, however Australian Professional Leagues Managing Director Danny Townsend told Soccerscene in February that the league was exploring entry into the NFT Fantasy space.“This is an emerging proposition all sports need to engage with and develop an understanding of, especially with the pace it’s moving at. One thing we’ve noticed through the fantasy process is the NFTs, or tokenisation, of fantasy competitions is coming to the forefront,” Townsend said.

“What we don’t want to do is build an analogue fantasy product knowing there is a digital one right around the corner. We were way down the road on a fantasy product to launch this year and we’re still committed to doing that, it just may be a different form to include a degree of tokenisation.”

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Victory unites with Roasting Warehouse in culture-led partnership

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Image credit: Melbourne Victory

The Melbourne-based anf family-owned business will join the Victory family, uniting two institutions which represent the city’s culture and identity.

A partnership with local roots

As the newest partner of Melbourne Victory, Roasting Warehouse joins forces with a vital part of the city’s sporting landscape.

The club’s Managing Director, Caroline Carnegie, outlined why the partnership bears so much value to both parties.

“We are excited to collaborate with Roasting Warehouse, a community-oriented destination for high-quality coffee, proud of its foundations in Melbourne,” said Carnegie via official media release.

“Football and coffee sit at the epicentre of Melbourne’s culture. The two go hand-in-hand, consistently at the centre of the conversation that stirs Melburnians, which is no different to the conversation sport and Melbourne Victory stir in the State.”

Indeed, this is a partnership which combines the identity, passions and culture of an entire city, therefore giving it the foundations required for long-term, mutual success.

Representing the best of Melbourne

Both Victory and Roasting Warehouse are hugely successful in their respective industries. They are institutions with community-oriented philosphies, who pride themselves on craft and quality.

“We’re incredibly proud to partner with Melbourne Victory, a club that represents the heart, passion, and ambition of Melbourne,” revealed Roasting Warehouse Head of Brand, Alexander Paraskevopoulos.

“As a Melbourne-founded, family-run business, supporting a team that means so much to the local community feels very natural for us.”

Furthermore, through their high-quality blends, Roasting Warehouse will look to prepare Victory’s players and staff for high performances on the pitch as the seasons nears completion.

But this is about far more than just fueling athletes.

This is a partnership which embodies and unites two of Melbourne’s greatest strengths and cultural markers – a connection forged from the city’s very own DNA.

 

For more information about Roasting Warehouse, click here.

Football NSW supports Female Coaches CPD as Women’s Football Surges

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Image Credit: Shutterstock

Football NSW has used the platform of the AFC Women’s Asian Cup to deliver a targeted professional development workshop for female coaches, bringing together scholarship recipients for an evening of structured learning and direct engagement with elite women’s football.

Held at ACPE last month, the session was open to female coaches who received C or B Diploma scholarships through Football NSW in 2025. Coaching accreditation carries a financial cost that disproportionately affects women, who are less likely to have their development subsidised by clubs or associations operating in underfunded community football environments. Scholarship access changes that equation at the point where many women exit the pathway.

Facilitated by Football NSW Coach Development Coordinator Bronwyn Kiceec, the workshop focused on goal scoring trends from the tournament’s group stage, with coaches analysing attacking patterns and exploring how those insights could translate into their own environments. The group then attended the quarter-final between South Korea and Uzbekistan at Stadium Australia.

The structure of the evening mattered as much as its content. Female coaches in community football rarely have access to elite competition environments as a professional resource. The gap between the level at which most women coach and the level at which the game is analysed and discussed tends to reinforce itself. Placing scholarship recipients inside a major tournament, as participants rather than spectators, closes that gap in a way that a classroom session cannot.

Female coaches remain significantly underrepresented across all levels of the game in Australia. The pipeline that will change that depends not only on accreditation access but on the professional networks, peer relationships and exposure to elite environments that male coaches have historically taken for granted.

The workshop forms part of Football NSW’s ongoing commitment to developing female coaches through scholarships and structured learning opportunities.

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