Gespa opens investigation into FIFA ‘right to buy’ World Cup NFTs
Switzerland's gambling regulator is looking into whether “right-to-buy” tokens sold by global soccer governing body FIFA before the 2026 World Cup comply with rules governing gambling, Bloomberg reports. No wrongdoing was alleged.
GESPA is evaluating whether the tokens that can be bought, sold and sold on the Fifa Invincible Token (NFT) marketplace are gambling-like or represent conditional purchase rights. FIFA stands for Fédération Internationale de Football Association.
The authority has not received any reports of crime, and is gathering facts to determine whether any action is warranted, director Manuel Richard told Bloomberg on Monday.
According to FIFA's website, RTB tokens are non-volatile tokens (NFTs) that reserve a specific buy-in window for a specific match. They are not tickets, but allow holders to purchase tickets in person if conditions are met.
FIFA has released “rights to buy” (RTB) signals for the 2024 World Cup finals for the first time, announcing 1,000 RTB opportunities for fans. Team-related RTBs only work if the selected team qualifies, and are powered by Web3 partner Modex in the secondary market on FIFA's native marketplace.
For the 2026 World Cup, which will be hosted by the US, Canada and Mexico, “end-to-end” tokens range from $299 to $999, depending on the team. Many tokens have already been sold, prices are determined by chance – long shots are cheap, while favorites such as Argentina, Brazil and England are at the top.
FIFA RTBs were created to address the high demand for tickets at certain matches and tournaments. For example, for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, 3.4 million tickets were offered for nearly 23 million requests, according to FIFA.
Cointelegraph reached out to FIFA for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
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FIFA's bet on NFT technology
NFTs are unique blockchain tokens that prove the ownership and authenticity of a particular asset. With widespread NFT growth peaking in 2021–22, FIFA continues to use NFT technology for digital collections, ticket access rights and games.
Football's governing body Federation first began experimenting with Web3 and NFTs in 2015.
In December 2023, ahead of the Club World Cup in Saudi Arabia, FIFA and Modex are giving away 1,000 NFTs – 100 for the chance to win tickets to the 2026 World Cup finals, and 900 more sets on sale at Polygon.
FIFA moves to Web3 gaming in 2024 with FIFA Rivals, developed by Web3 gaming studio Mythical Games. Launching in June 2025, the free-to-play mobile title allows players to run clubs, compete and trade NFT player cards on the Mythos blockchain.
In May, FIFA decided to exit Algorand and move its NFT marketplace and collection to Avalanche, which uses it to power its own Layer-1 blockchain.
Francesco Abbate, CEO of Modex and FIFA Collection, said Avacloud's EVM-compatible stack makes it easy to connect FIFA Collection to major wallets and DApps.
With an estimated fan base of over five billion worldwide, Avalanche Subnets allow FIFA to operate an independent, scalable chain that can be adjusted independently of the Avalanche network to manage event-based events such as the World Cup.
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