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Footbeat

footbeat

On 8/8/2023 at approximately 1:50pm, Atlanta Police initiated a traffic stop on a 2017 Maserati Levante at Baker St. and Ted Turner Dr. NW due to the vehicle’s dealer tag being illegible.

Zone 5 Traffic Unit & Footbeat Officers Collab to Arrest Suspect in Stolen Vehicle

The Murder Machine

La máquina asesina

La machine à tuer

मर्डर मशीन

殺人機械

A Máquina Assassina

cỗ máy giết người

谋杀机器

Astounding Stories of Super-Science August 1931: VOL. VII, NO. 2 - The Midget From the Island

Meet the Winners of Startups in North and Central America

The Winning of Lucinda

, a leading name in the global crypto sportsbook and casino gaming arena, is thrilled to unveil a groundbreaking collaboration with one of football's most illustrious talents, . WILLEMSTAD, Curaçao, November 29th, 2023/Chainwire/-- Duelbits Luis Suárez This partnership celebrates Suarez's remarkable legacy, including his victories in the Champions League, Copa America, and securing the Golden Boot on two occasions. Luis Suárez, affectionately known as El Pistolero, has left an indelible mark on European football, with storied tenures at Barcelona, Liverpool, Atletico Madrid, and Ajax, and is presently dazzling fans with Gremio in Brazil. A talisman for Uruguay's national team, Suarez has netted over 500 goals, earning him a place among the pantheon of football's greatest strikers. This collaboration signifies a major milestone for Duelbits, as it aligns with a sports figure who embodies the same values of excellence and innovation that have driven Duelbits to the forefront of the industry. As Duelbits continues to foster prestigious partnerships, including with the English Premier League's and , bringing Luis Suárez on board marks another strategic move in expanding its global presence. Aston Villa Argentina's national team Throughout this partnership, Suárez will champion Duelbits' campaigns, lending his image to a brand synonymous with superior quality and unmatched rewards. His professional ethos mirrors Duelbits' commitment to offering a secure, trustworthy, and leading-edge crypto sportsbook and casino experience, further solidifying the brand's identity and its resonance with a discerning global audience. Duelbits is set to amplify this alliance with an enticing welcome offer, providing new members a $100 credit to kickstart their betting journey on any desired outcome upon signing up, thereby inviting fans to not just witness, but also partake in the thrill of the game. In a statement, Luis Suárez shared his excitement about the collaboration, "Joining forces with Duelbits is a proud moment for me. It's more than a partnership; it's a shared vision of excellence and trust. I look forward to what we will achieve together." Marco Pinnisi, CEO of Duelbits, echoed Suarez's sentiments, "We are ecstatic to welcome Luis Suárez to the Duelbits family. His unparalleled achievements and our platform's promise of an exceptional betting experience are a perfect match. We're paving a new path for the future of crypto gambling together." Through this collaboration, Duelbits is poised to continue offering enthusiasts an elevated gaming experience, where innovation and top-tier entertainment converge seamlessly. About Duelbits Duelbits is a leading name in the crypto gaming industry, offering a premium platform tailored for bold and passionate cryptocurrency enthusiasts. With an exclusive library of original games, Duelbits redefines the gaming experience through innovation, personalisation, and unparalleled rewards. The platform prioritises security and trustworthiness, recognising and rewarding every player's unique journey. Our unwavering commitment is to provide the most enriching iGaming experience in the market, defined by fast payments and seamless accessibility. At Duelbits, we pride ourselves on offering the best odds, monumental bonuses, including up to a whopping 50% in Rakeback bonuses, and a uniquely personalised user experience. Positioned at the forefront of embracing cutting-edge innovations, we hold a steadfast belief in advanced technologies, AI, and cryptocurrencies. Each click is a purposeful stride towards an extraordinary adventure. | | | | | Website X Instagram Telegram YouTube d Discor Contact Head of Marketing Caroline Attard caroline.attard@duelbits.com This story was distributed as a release by Chainwire under HackerNoon’s Business Blogging Program. Learn more about the program . here

Duelbits Announces Landmark Collaboration With Football Icon Luis Suárez

Empowering Women: A Trailblazing Triumph in Sports Imagine a world where dreams know no bounds, where girls transform into fierce champions, and where the roar of the crowd echoes unity and equality. In recent years, a remarkable transformation has swept through the world of sports, empowering women to rise above the norms and shatter the glass ceiling. This awe-inspiring journey of empowerment is not just about winning on the field; it's about winning in life. Today, we embark on a captivating adventure that explores the significance of women's sports, immerses ourselves in the spectacular world of Women's FIFA, and reveals a groundbreaking collaboration that redefines football fandom in a whole new dimension. Unleashing Talent: Where Stars Are Born Step onto the pitch, where the magic of women's sports comes alive. From local playgrounds to global arenas, young athletes blaze a trail of determination, showcasing extraordinary talent and skill across various sports. Just like superheroes, their feats leave us in awe - the grace of Simone Biles in gymnastics, the unstoppable Serena Williams in tennis, the indomitable Megan Rapinoe in soccer - these are the champions who inspire us to dream big. Their journeys prove that women's sports are not just thrilling; they are power-packed arenas of excitement and grit. Empowerment Beyond the Field: Fueling the Fire Within Sports, dear friends, are more than just sweat and cheers; they are transformative journeys that shape young minds into confident leaders. When girls dive headfirst into sports, they learn to tackle life's challenges head-on, forging friendships on the field, and forming unbreakable bonds that extend beyond the game. Teamwork becomes their secret weapon, and discipline their guiding light. The lessons learned on the field serve as life's playbook, elevating them to triumph in every aspect of their lives. Driving Gender Equality: Breaking Barriers, Changing Rules In this tale of empowerment, women's sports emerge as a powerful catalyst for change, challenging norms, and smashing stereotypes. It's like a magical potion that erases the words "can't" and "impossible" from the dictionary. As we provide equal opportunities and resources, we unlock the gates of inclusivity and step into a world where talent knows no gender boundaries. Society is rewriting its script, cheering for female athletes, and embracing the incredible feats of women in sports. Close your eyes, young dreamers, and picture yourself stepping onto the grand stage of Women's FIFA, a stage that knows no boundaries or limits. As you watch your idols gracefully grace the world stage, you see reflections of your own dreams taking flight. With every goal, every save, and every celebration, a spark ignites within you, pushing you to chase your passion for soccer like a shooting comet. Upland and FIFA: A Pioneering Collaboration In a groundbreaking move, Upland, the leading web3 Metaverse SuperApp, and FIFA have joined forces to revolutionize football fandom. This collaboration aims to deliver an enthralling web3 experience for football enthusiasts worldwide, commemorating the FIFA Women's World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023TM like never before. Through Upland's metaverse platform, fans can immerse themselves fully in the FIFA journey, connecting with like-minded enthusiasts in themed Cafes, engaging in gamified digital collections, and participating in community-driven experiences. : Vested Interest Disclosure This author is an independent contributor publishing via our . Be it through direct compensation, media partnerships, or networking, the author has a vested interest in the company/ies mentioned in this story. HackerNoon has reviewed the report for quality, but the claims herein belong to the author. #DYOR brand-as-author program Gamified Collection Experience and Ownership Upland's innovative collection experience rewards fans for their unwavering team pride. With the purchase of Bundles containing digital collectibles at varying rarities, players can proudly display their country and team allegiances in the virtual realm. True ownership of digital collectibles empowers the community to create their own games and experiences, fostering a sense of ownership and creativity within the metaverse. A New Era of Football Fandom Empowering women through sports has become a force of change, breaking barriers, and championing gender equality. The FIFA Women's World CupTM, alongside Upland and FIFA's pioneering collaboration, ushers in a new era of football fandom. Through the web3 experience, fans from all corners of the globe unite in their passion for women's football, celebrating the talent, unity, and spirit of this global event. As we continue to empower women in sports and innovate in the realm of football fandom, we pave the way for a world where dreams know no bounds and talent knows no limits. Don’t forget to like and share the story!

Upland and FIFA: Redefining Football Fandom in the Web3 Era

Upland y FIFA: redefiniendo el fanatismo por el fútbol en la era Web3

Upland et FIFA : redéfinir le fandom du football à l'ère du Web3

अपलैंड और फीफा: वेब3 युग में फुटबॉल फैनडम को फिर से परिभाषित करना

Upland と FIFA: Web3 時代のサッカー ファンダムの再定義

Upland e FIFA: redefinindo o fandom de futebol na era Web3

Upland và FIFA: Định nghĩa lại Fandom bóng đá thời Web3

Upland 和 FIFA：重新定义 Web3 时代的足球迷

Footpath in April lies the Mole

The Football Fever is Here - FIFA 2022 The world has been taken over by football mania in the lead-up to the commencement of the FIFA in Qatar. The 22nd edition of the FIFA World Cup will be played by the elite national teams of the member associations of FIFA. After the 2002 tournament in South Korea and Japan, this will be the in Asia. Additionally, the tournament is expected to be the final with a 32-team field; the field is projected to rise to 48 teams for the 2026 event in the United States, Mexico, and Canada. The first game will be played between Qatar and Ecuador at Al Bayt Stadium in Al Khor. World Cup 2022 second World Cup hosted exclusively Binance is Bringing Crypto to FIFA 2022 Football fans may of a huge prize pool, which includes more than $1,000,000 in tokens, limited-edition NFTs, and premium club experiences like player meet-and-greets and training ground visits in a brand-new online tournament that Binance is launching. Starting on November 7th, Binance will begin " ," an initiative aimed at uniting and engaging a global community of sports and football lovers. win a share Football Fever 2022 To play, fans can start by claiming their complimentary NFT Passports and submit a guess for the outcome of upcoming matches to support their favourite teams. Users can start claiming their NFT Passport from November 7 and begin rooting for their favourite team from November 11 to December 18. The event is one of the latest to use blockchain technology to create a Web3 fan experience, and in addition to the possibility to win prizes, players are also rewarded with non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and money-can't-buy experiences from top-tier teams like as S.S. Lazio, FC Porto, Santos FC, and the BWT Alpine F1® Team, a Formula 1 racing team. New players and Binance Fan Token holders will also get game-specific incentives and multipliers. : Vested Interest Disclosure The author is an independent contributor publishing via our . Be it through direct compensation, media partnerships, or networking. The author has a vested interest in the company/ies mentioned in this story. HackerNoon has reviewed the report for quality, but the claims herein belong to the author. #DYOR brand-as-author program https://twitter.com/binance/status/1589657055547527168?embedable=true How Is It Going to Work? If you want to take part in the experience, all you have to do is visit or download the Binance app. You may sign up for three guesses in the daily challenge if you're new to Binance and want to check the game out, and you can play along every day if you already have a Binance account and have your NFT Passport set up. Binance.com What Is Binance? Binance is a major blockchain ecosystem and cryptocurrency infrastructure provider with the most prominent digital asset exchange by volume as part of its financial product suite. The Binance platform aims to expand the cryptocurrency market to provide financial liberty to individuals. It offers an unrivalled range of crypto products and services, including trading and finance, education, data and research, social good, investment and incubation, decentralisation and infrastructure solutions. What Is Binance Token? Binance Fan Token is a utility token that drives the fan experience and links teams, companies, and fans globally. Fans can demonstrate their support and unlock unique "fan moments" via exclusive rewards such as once-in-a-lifetime experiences, limited edition NFTs, and meet-and-greets with players while enjoying unique token holder benefits such as exclusive voting rights on certain club decisions reserved for fans and other blockchain-enabled solutions such as NFT ticketing with added benefits. All Binance users can purchase Binance Fan Tokens with both cash and cryptocurrency. Visit the for further information, token availability, and new listings. Binance Fan Token platform Don’t forget to like and share the story! Image credits: and . Thomas Serer Willian Justen de Vasconcellos

Binance Kicks Off 'Football Fever 2022' with $1 Million in Rewards for Football Fans 

Football Data Analysis Using Machine Learning Models Can Potentially Boost Throw-Ins!

Football is widely considered to be the most popular sport in the world, with approximately billion fans worldwide and 250 million players globally. This made it the obvious choice for cryptocurrency companies to get involved with as a means of that still exists within the space, and reaching a broader audience. 3.5 combating the negative stigma and perception In 2021, Spanish striker David Barral, became the first-ever professional footballer to have his transfer fee paid in cryptocurrency, using Bitcoin.  Whilst this may have been the first transfer fee to ever do this, commercial relationships between the football clubs and various cryptocurrencies are becoming increasingly common. In , multiple English Premier League sides including Tottenham Hotspur and more partnered with the trading platform . According to the UEFA, the cryptocurrency sector has partly helped clubs to fill lost revenue streams – – that was caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. 2018 eToro estimated at around €9 billion As football and crypto-currencies both grow and reach more people in all corners of the world, corporations around the world have projected at least a 20x increase in the global market cap by 2027. Similar crazy values have been placed on footballers, with the most recent confirmation by Paris Saint-Germain forward, on their re-signing of Kylian Mbappe. The him football’s highest earner now earning just under €1million/week in wages, as well as him receiving an enormous signing-on fee said to be worth €100million. One can only be glad they don't have to make these payments personally. contract makes French star’s new Fan Tokens Platforms such as Socios have taken over the “fan token” ecosystem, with a number of clubs such as Man City, Barcelona and more releasing their own fan token. Fans and enthusiasts globally have traded these like any asset, with real-world perks attached such as discounts in club shops - taking the fan experience up a notch.  Clubs like Juventus have also allowed token holders to choose a song when a goal is scored! Questions remain if fan-tokens, trading assets and million-dollar sponsorships are as far as the Web3 market goes? Projects like So-Rare, RealFevr and __ __are helping change that - giving fans and users utility through the ever trending NFTs, play to earn games and metaverse. With their latest player onboarding, Metasoccer announced Ronaldinho, a true legend of the game to become their exclusive and licensed player within their football manager game on the metaverse. Initiatives like these have given users the opportunity to not just buy and trade, but actually meet, win signed merchandise, own exclusive player assets and earn by playing in the games. Metasoccer Through the use of Web3.0, and partnering with projects such as Metasoccer, there is the possibility to allow football fans to direct ownership of players in the game, through non-fungible tokens (NFTs). No one, not even the game's creators, has the power to take away this ownership of the NFTs. And, if the fan decides to stop playing the game, they have the option to simply sell or trade their in-game NFTs on open markets and recoup their value. In Argentinia MetaSoccer ( ) has partnered with Aston Villa and Argentina National Team goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez, Arsenal FC midfielder Thomas Partey, and of course Ballon D’Or, World Cup and the Champions League winner, Ronaldinho - A true legend of the game. Players of the game actually get the chance to use these NFTs within the game and win rewards by simply playing. These players become more than just an NFT, but part of the actual game. You as a player now have the ability to manage these superstars. This is exactly how a club can move beyond simply having a token, but rather create an immersive experience for their fans and players, not only generating additional income for players and club but giving back to the fans and bringing them closer than ever before. $MSU Looking at the opportunities that Web3.0 and Metaverse are able to provide, it's clear that multiple stakeholders are set to benefit. From the clubs to the players, avid investors to those who are simply football fans. They have the opportunity to not only get closer to the players and clubs they love, but have the opportunity to capitalise on a multi-billion dollar industry, as well as one that is ready to do a nearly 20X. The wise words of Jock Stein ring ever more true… Football Without Fans is nothing. The question is will your club take the leap and embrace web 3.0 or will they simply get left behind?

How Fan Tokens Are Changing Football

Scraping football data (or soccer in the US) is a great way to build a comprehensive dataset that can then be used to help us create stats dashboards, run cross-analysis and use the insights for sports journalism or fantasy leagues. Whatever your goal is, scraping football data can help you gather all the information you need to make it a reality. In this tutorial, we’re going to build a simple football data scraper with Axios and Cheerio in Node.js. A Few Things to Consider Before Starting Although you’ll be able to follow along with this tutorial without any prior knowledge, you’ll need a little experience in web scraping to make the most out of it and use this information in other contexts. If you’re new to web scraping, we recommend you read our guide and our tutorial on to learn more about async/await. basics of web scraping in the Node.js how to build an eBay scraper Also, an understanding of the fundamentals of HTML and Javascript is recommended. Building a Football Dataset with Web Scraping 1. Picking a Data Source Although there are fundamental principles that apply to every web scraping project, every website is a unique puzzle to be solved. So is choosing where you’ll get your data from and how exactly you’ll use it. Here are a few sources you could use to obtain football data: https://www.premierleague.com/ https://footystats.org/ https://fbref.com/ For simplicity’s sake, we’ll be scraping page, as it has all the information we’ll be scraping directly inside the HTML document, and because a lot of the data found on these websites are in the form of tables, making it crucial to learn how to scrape them effectively. BBC’s premier league table Other websites like use JavaScript to inject the table’s content into the page, making it harder for us to access the data. That said, we’ll be dealing with those kinds of tables in a later entry. Note: ESPN 2. Understanding HTML Tables Tables are a great way to organize content and display a higher view of datasets, allowing us humans to understand it easier. At first glance, every table is made up of two major elements: columns and rows. However, the is a little more complex than that. HTML structure of tables Tables start with a <table> tag, telling the browser to render everything inside of it as a table. To define a row we use the <tr> tag and <td> for each table cell inside a <tr>. Something else we’ll see a lot are headers, which are represented by a <th> tag within the rows. Here’s an example from W3school: <table> <tr> <th>Month</th> <th>Savings</th> </tr> <tr> <td>January</td> <td>$100</td> </tr> <tr> <td>February</td> <td>$80</td> </tr> </table> Let’s explore our target table with this structure in mind by inspecting the page. The code is a little messy, but this is the kind of HTML file you’ll find in the real world. Despite the mess, it still respects the , and the structure we discussed above. <table> <tr> <td> So what’s the best approach to scraping the football data in this table? Well, if we can create an array containing all rows, we can then iterate through each of them and grab the text from every cell. Well, that’s the hypothesis anyway. To confirm it, we’ll need to test a few things in our browser’s console. 3. Using Chrome’s Console for Testing There are a couple of things we want to test. The first thing to test is whether the data resides in the HTML file, or if it’s being injected into it. We’ve already told you it does reside in the HTML file, but you’ll want to learn how to verify it on your own for future football scraping projects on other sites. The easiest way to see whether or not the data is being injected from elsewhere is to copy some of the text from the table – in our case, we’ll copy the first team – and look for it in the page source. Do the same thing with a few more elements to be sure. The page source is the HTML file before any rendering happens, so you can see the initial state of the page. If the element is not there, that means the data is being injected from elsewhere and you’ll need to find another solution to scrape it. The second thing we want to test before coding our scraper is our selectors. For this, we can use the browser’s console to select elements using the .querySelectorAll() method, using the element and class we want to scrape. The first thing we want to do is select the table itself. document.querySelectorAll("table") Finally, we’ll select all the elements in the table: <tr> document.querySelectorAll(“table > tbody > tr”) Awesome, 20 nodes! It matches the number of rows we want to scrape, so we now know how to select them with our scraper. Remember that when we have a node list, the count starts at 0 instead of 1. Note: The only thing missing is learning the position of each element in the cell. Spoiler alert, it goes from 2 to 10. Awesome, now we’re finally ready to go to our code editor. 4. Getting Our Environment Ready To begin the project, create a new directory/folder and open it in VScode or your preferred code editor. We’ll install first, then open your terminal and start your project with the command . Node.js and NPM npm -y init Then, we’ll install our dependencies using NPM: npm install Axios npm install cheerio CSV npm install object-to- 5. Sending the Initial Request We’ll want to build our scraper as an async function so we can use the await keyword to make it faster and more resilient. Let’s open our function and send the initial request using Axios by passing the URL to it and storing the result in a variable called response. To test if it’s working, log the status of the response. (async function () { const response = await axios('https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/tables'); console.log(response.status) })(); 6. Passing the Response to Cheerio for Parsing We’re going to store the response’s data as a variable (we’ll name it HTML for simplicity) and pass it to Cheerio with the .load() method, inside a dollar sign $ variable, just like JQuery. const html = await response.data; const $ = cheerio.load(html) Cheerio will and turn it into a node tree we can navigate using CSS selectors like back on the browser’s console. parse the raw HTML data 7. Building the Parser Writing our parser is way easier having already tested the selectors in the browser’s console. Now we just need to translate it into Node. JS. For starters, we’ll grab all the rows in the table: const allRows = $("table.gs-o-table > tbody.gel-long-primer > tr"); Again, try to name your variables something that makes sense. It will save you time on bigger projects, and make it so that anyone can understand what each part of your code does. In Node.JS, we can use the method to loop through all of the nodes and select the <tds> elements. Take a closer look at the code to figure out exactly what’s going on: .each() allRows.each((index, element) => { const tds = $(element).find('td'); const team = $(tds[2]).text(); const played = $(tds[3]).text(); const won = $(tds[4]).text(); const drawn = $(tds[5]).text(); const lost = $(tds[6]).text(); const gf = $(tds[7]).text(); const against = $(tds[8]).text(); const gd = $(tds[9]).text(); const points = $(tds[10]).text(); Notice that we first store all the elements into a variable that we can then use to pick every cell by its position in the index. <td> tds Let’s test one of these elements to make sure that it’s working and so we can see what it returns: allRows.each((index, element) => { const tds = $(element).find('td'); const team = $(tds[2]).text(); console.log(team) }); As you can see, it returns an ordered list rather than a long string – exactly what we need for the next step. 8. Saving Football Data Into a CSV File We’ll break this process into three steps. 1- Create an empty array outside of the main function. premierLeagueTable = []; 2- Next, push each element scraped into the array using the .push() method and use a descriptive name to label them. You want them to match the headers from the table you’re scraping. premierLeagueTable.push({ 'Team': team, 'Played': played, 'Won': won, 'Drawn': drawn, 'Lost': lost, 'Goals For': gf, 'Goals Against': against, 'Goals Difference': gd, 'Points': points, }) 3- Third, use ObjectToCsv to create a new CSV file and save it to your machine with the .toDisk() method, including the file path and name of the file. const csv = new ObjectsToCsv(premierLeagueTable); await csv.toDisk('./footballData.csv') That’s all we need to export our data. We could also create the sheet ourselves, but there’s no need. ObjectToCsv makes the process super fast and easy. 9. Test Run and Full Code We added a few statements for testing purposes but other than that, you should have the same code like the one below: console.log() const axios = require("axios"); const cheerio = require("cheerio"); const ObjectsToCsv = require("objects-to-csv"); premierLeagueTable = []; (async function () { const response = await axios('https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/tables'); console.log('Loading tables') console.log(response.status) const html = await response.data; const $ = cheerio.load(html); const allRows = $("table.gs-o-table > tbody.gel-long-primer > tr"); console.log('Going through rows') allRows.each((index, element) => { const tds = $(element).find('td'); const team = $(tds[2]).text(); const played = $(tds[3]).text(); const won = $(tds[4]).text(); const drawn = $(tds[5]).text(); const lost = $(tds[6]).text(); const gf = $(tds[7]).text(); const against = $(tds[8]).text(); const gd = $(tds[9]).text(); const points = $(tds[10]).text(); premierLeagueTable.push({ 'Team': team, 'Played': played, 'Won': won, 'Drawn': drawn, 'Lost': lost, 'Goals For': gf, 'Goals Against': against, 'Goals Difference': gd, 'Points': points, }) }); console.log('Saving data to CSV'); const csv = new ObjectsToCsv(premierLeagueTable); await csv.toDisk('./footballData.csv') console.log('Saved to csv'); })(); Run it with node index.js, and in less than a second, you’ll have a CSV file ready to use. You can use the same process to scrape virtually any HTML table you want and grow a huge football dataset for analytics, result forecasting, and more. Integrate ScraperAPI into Your Football Web Scraper Let’s add a layer of protection to our scraper by sending our request through ScraperAPI. This will help us scrape several pages without risking getting our IP address blocked or being permanently banned from those pages. First, to get 5000 free API calls and our key. There we’ll also see the cURL example we’ll need to use in our initial request. let’s create a free ScraperAPI account As you can see, all we need to do is to replace the URL in the example with our target URL, and ScraperAPI will do the rest. const response = await axios('http://api.scraperapi.com? api_key=51e43be283e4db2a5afb62660xxxxxxx&url=https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/tables'); Our request may take a little longer, but in return, it will rotate our IP address automatically for every request, use years of statistical analysis and machine learning to determine the best header combination, and handle any CAPTCHA that might appear. Originally published here.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Building a Football Data Scraper

Soccer, or football, is a really popular sport in the world. Its history started in the 19th century when in 1863 the Football Association laid down the rules in England. Since then, a lot of things have changed, but one thing remained constant: . So, I'm going to show you the Goal-Line Technology, which "maybe" helped football being a fairer game. refereeing mistakes Before Goal-Line Technology As we know in football a goal is valid, if it . However, referees need(ed) to decide a goal's validation with their eyes. We can imagine how hard this is even if referees have assistant referees. And sometimes there were mistakes because of it. Just to mention the 2010 World Cup, where Frank Lampard scored an equalizer goal against Germany, but the referee didn't validate that. goes through the goal-line So we needed a solution to this problem. The target was to produce a system, which can assist referees with validation. After developing the system, they tested it in 2011 between September and December. Some of the technologies which did not work have been taken out of the second testing period, where they already used the technologies in some real matches. How these technologies work I know everybody is interested in how these two technologies work, so I'm going to show you now. The first one is the . It's Sony's property, which uses a few fast cameras. Hawk-Eye System These camera images then can triangulate where the ball is by comparison to the other cameras at the same time. The other tech is , a German system. It has 14 cameras around the stadium and is positioned mainly around the two goals. These cameras always capture where the ball is. A very interesting thing about these technologies is that they can filter out every member on the pitch except the ball. GoalControl Usage in real situations What I didn't mention so far is the introduction of this system. In 2012, at the Club World Cup, both technologies were used in two separate stadiums. Then in 2013 by preparation for the 2014 World Cup they used the GoalControl at the Confederations Cup. It was successful, so in the end, they at the . used it World Cup However, at the moment, each of the 121 stadiums, which have licensed Goal-Line Technology installed, uses the Hawk-Eye system. The problems with the system Of course, it got a lot of criticism. The main thing that critics pointed out was that, with this technology change the sport's going to lose its human side. And not the critics were the only problem. Some teams or leagues didn't want to install the system because it was for clubs, with lower budgets. For instance, in the US soccer league or MLS, it would cost $260,000 per stadium to install. too expensive And the second problem was that the system could even make , so it wasn't a hundred percent perfect. During the 2017-2018 season, in the France Cup, Goal-Line Technology failed to validate Paris Saint-Germain's goal. Fortunately, VAR or video assistant referee was available, so at last, they validated the goal for PSG. faults However, in 2020 Sheffield United didn't have the fortune of VAR. Against Aston Villa, they scored a valid goal, which the technology didn't notice, so the officials didn't interrupt the match. After the match, Hawk-Eye explained why their system failed to detect the goal. They said their seven cameras around the goal were distracted by some players and the post. So, by the end of this article, I think football fans, players, and referees can be happy about this technology. It often can help on avoiding big mistakes, which help referees to make the . Naturally, there can be problems with it as we've seen, but everyone and everything can make faults. Hopefully, the tech will be improved and perfected in the near future! right decisions This article was written . by Superfitt

How Goal-Line Technology has Changed Football

Football is not a game, . With each team comes their rabid fan following that has led to countless bar brawls amidst the frenzied atmosphere. With over 4 billion fans worldwide (for the record, the number of internet users in the world is also 4 Billion), football acts as the melting pots for diverse cultures to come together and forge new ones based around the team colors. it is a religion (Source: Businessinsider) It is therefore not a surprise that blockchain enthusiasts began to find newer ways to enrich the fans’ experience and allow them a wider role in the affairs of their favorite teams and players. Several football legends have participated in exhibition matches to raise awareness about football and collect funds for charities and noble causes. Since the top tier leagues are tightly scheduled with itineraries created for a long time in the foreseeable future, the players of the teams that play in top-tier leagues find it hard to find the time to play in such promotional matches for charities unless mandated by their bosses. (Source: Deloitte) The only control that the fans can have over the fixtures and player-trading is via fantasy football leagues. According to the , the fantasy sports league is pegged to have a market valuation of over $7.22 Billion. FSTA (Source: 888 Casino) However, once these football greats retire, they find more time to participate in for-charity exhibition matches that allow a greater control to fans over match fixtures, stadiums to play in, and even jerseys to play in. Fabio Cannavaro, Andriy Shevchenko, Cafu, and Paul Scholes have put their weight behind the GLS league which has an interesting Blockchain component to it. The GLS League According to the , “the Global Legends are a team of invited legendary soccer players from around the world, who have won the biggest competitions and are followed by the loyalist fans. The legends play a number of exhibition games in select cities around the world.” website (Source: GLS) Their player requirements are very stringent. The player criteria to qualify for the Global Legends Series is to have: Won the World Cup Won the European Championship Won the Champions League Played 50+ times for their country How does Blockchain Help? The Blockchain brings together fans and footballers together to lay down the future course of action for the league. It makes the system more decentralized and enables true democratic decision making than the autocratic ones taken today. GLS League has to develop ERC20 tokens to tokenize the entirety of the league’s activities. So, if I buy one of their tokens, I get to have a vote in deciding: partnered with 433token Where do my favorite superstars play? Who they play against? Who does my favorite superstars mentor to become a better footballer? ..and other similar features. At the time of writing, the 433token website features Andriy Shevchenko and Paul Scholes as confirmed mentors who will abide by the wishes of the token holders with respect to mentoring young talent, playing at token-holder decided stadiums, and meeting token-holder determined individuals for meets and greets. Blockchain and Voting: The story so far Blockchain enables a voting system for these projects where the token-holders are like the citizens of the football nation. We have already seen projects such earlier such as which wanted all elections to go on the blockchain. Understandably, against such an idea. Their main premise was that blockchain based voting will prevent independent and autonomous organizations from conducting free and fair elections. Polys security experts rang warning bells (Source: Abaka News) I think we can safely conclude that concerns of the security experts stem from the fact that they do not trust decentralization as much as they should. It is the new shiny kid on the block but is prone to highly unpredictable behavior at times. This unpredictability makes a lot of power-hungry people very nervous. Therefore, I feel that sporting events can exhibit how convenient, cost-effective, and peaceful can voting on blockchain be. I had always expected the voting systems for sporting events to revolve around fantasy leagues or lower tier leagues because unfortunately, that's how groundswells work. However, football greats such as Shevchenko and Scholes putting their weight behind Blockchain is far more monumental than Floyd Mayweather and hip-hop artists doing the same. The voices sound sanitized and there is gravitas to what they say. Takeaways As someone who has seen first-hand the lengths and researches the fantasy footballers go through, the promise of an actual stake in the functioning of an entire league is something I assume their dreams are made of. With respect to Blockchain technologies, we’ve come to see and now expect projects that cater to our wants and not just our needs. Fractionalized ownership is just one of them but has garnered the most interest. While these Football guys are not exchanging anything tangible but are, kind of, trading favors, the market for such decentralized decision-making projects is on the rise. We’ve seen the grand plans to decentralize the voting system which, in all probability, will allow vote audits of the kind that we’ve never seen in our democratic governments. When bitcoin came out ten years ago, there were a lot of concerns regarding transparent book-keeping. There are people on both sides of the fence. We just have to wait and watch for the winner to emerge.

Retired Footballers become the new Ballers for Blockchain

Imagine a virtual space where talented sports men and women can share their story and their path to achieving greatness with you. Imagine browsing through their stats, achievements and AI predictions on their future potential. Imagine being able to select players on their rise to fame. All this has been made possible. Now you can invest in them and benefit from their increasing value and future contracts. Imagine being a young sports talent on the path to mastery. Now you are able to get your boost of motivation in the sports centre. You are able to: create your virtual passport on the blockchain platform, get tracking devices to help you improve your training and now you have a place to see these aggregated results of your work with all the statistics, data and predictions you need to better yourself. With the capability to compare yourself to others, use AI algorithms to see your predicted improvement, you can now share your results with the world and become the best you are able to be. Climb the ladder of excellence and get support from sports fans and investors. In a global economy, markets are becoming more transparent and accessible. There are projects like Bitcademy which are pioneers in creating a platform for players, fans and investors. Bitcademy’s internet portal will be a community of aspirational young players climbing to the top of a virtual ladder. The first step to join for a young talent is to create a virtual passport that would organize and gather all the necessary data. The next step would be ordering a tracker and registering all training activity. The tracker combined with an app would input all the data to the passport. Now a player can see themselves amongst his peers and compete with them in achieving sports challenges proposed by Bitcademy. For example a 14-year-old footballer could know exactly how quick they are, how strong their shots are compared to thousands other 14-year-old footballers spread across the world. They could mirror the training techniques of the best to achieve the furthest progression. They would get an extra boost of motivation not to miss any training and to give their best during at all times when on the pitch. Sharing the results on their social media would also be a motivating factor to the individual player and would also help grow awareness of the good work that Bitcademy is doing across the world. Not to mention, they would share this virtual space with their football idols and could compare their own personal statistics with those of the stars. Higher up the ladder, a player could launch their own investment token on the platform. This is where we see the implementation of blockchain into Bitcademy’s vision. By forking Bitcademy’s silver token a market of players is created. Now the young talented sportsmen and women have all their data stored safely in the blockchain, they are able to attract traffic to their player passport from social media and get direct financing from football fans and investors. The platform creates a whole new market for investors. The value of a young player can go up exponentially in line with how the player manages to develop. For example, a younger player scores a fantastic solo goal, out skills an entire team and out-foxes multiple defenders with high levels of skill and dexterity. What happens? The value of the young player’s token would rise. All scouts and clubs are on the lookout for a new global superstar. Now there is a place to find them: Bitcademy’s platform. This does not even touch how much more interesting football games would be for fans/investors if they could watch a player they invested in. Bitcademy provides tools to establish a player’s value even before they are a professional. Virtual passports contain not only players statistics and movement on the pitch, but also video footage of training and practice games. Bitcademy’s AI algorithm score, collecting all the data from tracking devices and constantly adjusting in predicting the future value is also going to be available. To continually add to the talent pool Bitcademy is going to build physical football academies in underdeveloped countries. Creating physical places is not only good for investors, most of all we want to give a chance for a better future to children in those regions. The social impact of this enterprise cannot be underestimated. A lot of football stars grew up in poverty. Didier Drogba, an international football star and Ivory Coast native, promised to give back all his endorsement earnings to charity. He kick-started the effort with the $5 million he received from Pepsi. The money will be used to build a hospital and orphanage in the Ivorian capital Abidjan. In the same vein, every single talent is a hope for a better future for his local community. Bitcademy plan is to, alongside the virtual marketplace, build brick and mortar, physical football academies. These two scalable modules, the platform and physical academies, complete with each other and create one extraordinary endeavour. Combining social impact and great investment opportunities is a win-win opportunity. Bitcademy is creating a branch of socially oriented blockchain and is showing how this great technology can change the world. How are we going to make it? After the ICO phase, the Bitcademy team is going to simultaneously start creating the platform and building football academies. Depending on the sum gathered during the ICO, we are going to build between 1–3 academies. Currently, we have location scouts searching for the best locations. Factors taken into consideration are quality of potential talent, costs and the impact on the local communities. As for the platform, the three main goals are going to be: to create a space with tools designed to help athletes grow (by monitoring their progress and creating motivational challenges with a reward system), giving athletes a community: a place to shine, become known and attract investors, to enable a completely new relation between fans and their idols — making it possible to invest in a talent. To enable the platform Bitcademy utilities among others: blockchain technology (to enable direct players investments and all-around metrics storage), sport tracking devices (to measure performance), artificial intelligence algorithms (to predict progress and value increase). Gathering the most sophisticated comprehensive data on sportsmen and sportswomen and putting them in one place — a player passport. This has never been done before. The new revolutionary idea will bring fans so much closer to the game and will impact many young struggling athletes and their communities. You can be part of this exciting change. Follow us, read about us, join us!

The future of football

The football industry, or as Americans prefer to say the ‘soccer’ industry, has been slowly adopting cryptocurrencies. Brand ambassadors, blockchain commercials during half-time, shirt sponsoring and crypto commercial boarding advertisements are some of the trends that we are seeing in the global Football Industry. In this article I will elaborate on the industry and the trends that we are currently seeing. I expect the cryptocurrency adoption in the football industry to continue to increase as there are still a lot of projects that raised a massive amount of funds of which a big part will go towards marketing. Brand ambassadors , by some considered, one of the greatest football players of all time, became a brand ambassador for . Blockchain-based hardware device manufacturer Sirin Labs raised 157,000,000 USD to develop and market several highly-secure smart devices like their blockchain enhanced smartphone with a built-in cold wallet, called FINNEY™ (named after computer scientist and one of the first Bitcoin users, or fellow Bitcoin-creator ). Lionel Messi Sirin Labs Hal Finney Belgian National football player, Eden Hazard and Argentinian International Sergio Aguero joined forces to promote the platform, that aims to build a blockchain focused on launching sports-related digital applications. all-sports Ex-Chelsea player has become a brand ambassador for the social platform all.me, that focuses on crypto traders. Didier Drogba Football playing cannibal gave a shout out to prediction market competitor Stox . Luiz Suarez on Twitter last year Commercials and sponsorships , an Internet-of-Things (IoT) based subsidiary of Hyundai, has launched an ICO last year to raise capital for their innovative blockchain platform. During the FIFA World cup this past summer in Russia, they showed their commercial during half-time. A link to the commercial: Hdac https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8EcrSjb85o Online investment platform which has a user base of 9 million users worldwide has signed an agreement with the English Premier League for several sponsor activities, like sponsoring the wooden and led billboards during soccer matches. Besides regular stocks, eToro also offers the trading of cryptocurrencies. eToro Digital asset exchange platform has also been advertising in the Italian Series A Football League. COSS.IO Blockchain project that wants to focus on growing a large network in the sports industry wants to buy Dutch football club Roda JC. Libereum Wolverhampton Wanderers FC has partnered with Polish cryptocurrency exchange . As of this football season, CoinDeal will be their shirt sponsor. CoinDeal Besides ‘The Wolves’, Arsenal also has a crypto project which is online crypto betting site CashBet coin. shirt sponsor Gibraltar Premier Division team will be the first Football Club that will pay their players in cryptocurrency, starting next season. Gibraltar United Football players with their own cryptocurrency token The platform, that aims to tokenize people, enabled James Rodriguez to launch his own cryptocurrency token called JR10. Selfsell will also launch SelfDax a decentralized digital asset exchange that enables for personalized SelfSell based tokens to be traded on the platform. JR10 will be one of the tokens that can be traded on the exchange. The purpose of JR10 token and its main benefit to token holders will need to be addressed and is not yet made public. SelfSell Former English National player Michael Owen is also launching his own token, conveniently called OWN. It is priced at around $ 10,- per token. It seems like Michael Owen is heavily invested in cryptocurrency projects as he is also part of the Singaporean based (GCOX). By being an advisor for the project Michael Owen is joined by Boxing legend Manny Pacquiao and Singer Jason Derulo. Global Crypto Offering Exchange ICOs (LFE) has executed an ICO in which they allegedly raised over 70,000,000 USD at the beginning of this year to launch the worlds’ first Football Club Stock Exchange. They planned to raise 350,000,000 USD as that was the project’s hardcap. London Football Exchange Two major league UK soccer clubs, Newcastle United and Cardiff City are researching the possibility to launch an ICO. Both clubs are not in the best financial position so they asked sports investment and funding platform SportyCo to look into the option of launching an ICO. Tokens in the sale can be sold as Security tokens, which means that investors would gain actual value in the form of company shares, dividend or decision-making power. has also assisted to raise 20 million USD in their public token sale for AVAI tokens. Avai is also the main sponsor of world-renowned Football Club Espanyol. SportyCo Avai Futebol Clube Tokenized football fan voting platform, is initiating a ) for French Ligne 1 Football club Paris Saint Germain in which they raise money in exchange for utility tokens. Supporters that own these tokens will be incentivized in a certain way. socios.com Fan Token Offering (FTO Future Football players often times land big endorsement deals that earn them millions of Dollars. There are a lot of crypto projects that profited from the bull run last year and have the funds to acquire major football stars that join their project as an ambassador. With a fanbase of around 3.5 Billion people worldwide, the football industry can play a big factor in raising the awareness of cryptocurrencies and related financial services and products. Football fans from all over the world will be seeing a lot of cryptocurrency projects when watching their weekly soccer matches. Let’s hope this increasing global awareness will attract some new investors into the cryptocurrency industry. As I see it, the only thing that is positive about these trends is the fact that more people get to come familiar with cryptocurrency. Sports stars endorsing projects they probably didn’t research is one thing, but launching your own cryptocurrency token to me only screams money grab. The utility of those tokens is not specified anywhere but I assume you are not owning a piece of that soccer star by purchasing its token. Disclaimer : This article is not intended as investment advice. It is just my personal opinion. You should always do your own research. I am not rewarded for writing this article. Subscribe to my channels , and if you like my articles and would like to be informed about Blockchain, cryptocurrency projects and news. You can also read my articles on . Steemit Medium Twitter LinkedIn If you have any questions about this article, please comment in the comment section below. Thank you! LindaCrypto

The presence of cryptocurrency in the Global Football Industry

After 4 year of waiting we had another World Cup full of surprises and once again I decided to do a football pool, or quiniela as called in Latin America, to scam all my friends… I mean to learn more. My first experience was on 2014 using PHP and Yii to create it but this time I wanted to learn something new and fresh. I want to share my experience with Node and the solution I reached. Note: This article is about my experience creating one of my first apps with Node and in no way an actual guide for beginners. If you are new to Node there are several guides you find that will help you more, including the official guide . Of course I’m always eager to help in any way I can. Why Node? I’ve been using Python for web development for the last years and every time I’m searching for news they are all talking about Node, so I decided to join the cool kid’s club and try it. Me Rules Before starting I needed to set the rules for this year. I don’ think these are the standard rules but on my experience are extremely fun (specially on the last matches when a point or two can make you win): All the users must enter the prediction of a match before starts. If the prediction of a score is an exact match of the final result he earns 3 points. If is not an exact match but have the same winner then he earns 1 point. Example: if user A goes with 3–0 and the actual score is 2–1 then the user gets 1 one point. If the match is a tie and the user also predicts a tie he will earn 1 point. Example: if user B goes 3–3 and the score is 1–1 then the user gets 1 point. The winner is the user with the most points. Structure (You can get the complete code ) here The first thing I needed to do was finding an structure that was easy to understand but at the same time scalable. Finally I decided to use an structure somewhat similar to which I’m more familiar with (baby steps!). Flask blueprints api/|-- config.js|-- controllers|   |-- database.js|   `-- positions.js|-- matches|   |-- index.js|   `-- matches.js|-- teams|   |-- index.js|   `-- teams.js`-- users|-- index.js`-- users.js This structure groups the functionality of each main feature of the API and views in a directory. Since this is a small project I used only an index file to expose the router and a single file to store the endpoints. The config file contains the variables used to change the behavior of the app and stores other configuration like for example the id for Oauth A brief description of each component in the api directory: Teams To display the info of all the teams or just a single team by id. Users Calculate the total points of each user and update the prediction of each user before a match. Matches Contains controllers to view the result of matches, update results, get next match or n last matches. Controllers Functions used by any of the other components. Mainly used to handle the connection to the database and queries. Speaking of that… Database My second problem was to find a way to store the information of the teams, predictions, dates and results. Although most of the guides I found recommended a different approach (like non relational databases) I opted to use Postgres mainly because that’s what I usually do and didn’t want to add more difficulty as I was on a tight dead line with the first match starting on a couple days (procrastination, hooray!). The database is simple and contains only four tables: Matches: stores the date and final results of each match. Teams: the name of each team. Predictions: the score predicted by each user. Users: a name used to identify each user and an email for login purposes. The API Routing To create the API I used and its powerful component. With it I can separate the routes the same way I created the structure and use the router to create the endpoint in each module: Express router // An example of matches.js inside api/matches// obtain routerconst express = require('express'),router = express.Router()... // example of an endpoint.router.get("/all", (req, res) => {console.log("obtain all matches");// do stuff}) And in the server.js file I import all routes from the other modules: // require express and import the routes in the api directoryconst express = require('express');matches = require('./api/matches'),teams = require('./api/teams'),users = require('./api/users'),... // register the routes in the appapp.use('/teams',teams).use('/matches', matches).use('/users', users)... // other routes Postgres To manage the database session and the queries I used . With this library you can obtain the database url from the environment (safer and used in some places like Heroku): Node-postgres const { DATABASE_URL } = process.env;var pool = new Pool({connectionString: DATABASE_URL}); Or create the object and pass it to the Pool: var pool = new Pool({user: 'username',host: 'localhost',database: 'database_name',password: 'my_password',port: 5432}); With the connections established you can execute queries like this: // connect pool and query all teams in tablepool.connect().then(client => {return client.query("SELECT * FROM teams").then(data =>{// do stuff with the data...}) With this two components I was able to start coding the endpoints needed for each of the modules and store the data in the database By the way if you think the code for the query is ugly… you are right! I was descending to hell … callback hell But that’s a story for another day If you want to test the app follow the next steps. Requirements node js(obviously) npm postgres a browser or curl to view the responses Installing First clone the project from github: git clone https://github.com/agmezr/quiniela.git The project’s structure: api/: controllers, views and responses assets/: contains the script for the database server.js: the file that configure and starts the server packages json: used to install the needed dependencies Install the dependencies of the project using npm: npm install Run the script in assets/database.sql to create the database: psql <db name | postgres> -f assets/database.sql After installing the dependencies and db, run the server using: node server.js If everything is ok you should see a message like this: Staring app on 8080 Now open your browser (or use curl) and access localhost:8080/index to see an awesome response: {"status":"ok"} If you see that response everything is running. You can play with the other endpoints, for example to view the information of the first team enter to: http://localhost:8080/teams/1 you will see this response: [{"id":1,"name":"Russia","grp":"A"}] Next steps On next articles I want to share my experience with the use of Oauth to login users using a Google account and creating the views to display the data user friendly and finally deploying it on Heroku. Conclusion As one of my fists approaches to Node I want to say it was very pleasant working with it. There are many guides helping the beginners including the official documentation and many more libraries to help you with common task like security, connection to db, etc. Of course there are some things that are hard to understand at first like and the new but nothing a few hours worth of coding can’t fix. Promises ES6 syntax My advice if you want to try Node JS is create something easy and fun like I did and beware of ! callback hell

Creating a football pool as an excuse to learn Node JS

With the recent surge of Blockchain and cryptocurrency projects, competition has become stiff among companies concentrating on the same niche. Therefore celebrities have become a secret weapon, to companies that can afford them, to turn the market to their favor. Celebrity endorsement can go a long way in boosting a brands global profile. In the recent past, there have been a few football stars fronting ICO ad campaigns. In this post, we shall explore four famous football stars that have come in handy as ICO ambassadors. So, let’s delve in and explore: 1. Luis Figo for STRYKZ From Left to Right: Luis Figo, Dirk Weyel (Strykz CEO) “When I heard about Football-Stars for the first time I immediately liked the idea. Football becomes more and more data-driven with detailed statistics about all aspects of the game-this is what Stryking’s platform utilizes to create a compelling fan experience. I am happy to support the experienced team at Stryking and spread the word about their platform that allows fans to engage with the teams and players they are backing.” said, the football legend, Luis Figo after he agreed to endorse the Stryking Entertainment Football-star by becoming its Initial Coin Offering brand ambassador. Luis Filipe Madeira Caeiro Figo is a Portuguese world-class football veteran with great achievements in the football arena that include, winning the 2000 Ballon d’Or and the 2001 FIFA World Player of the Year. He also assisted his team win coveted titles such as the UEFA Champions League, Italian Champion and Cup, Spanish Champion and Cup and Portuguese Cup. Football-Stars is Stryking’s very own fantasy football platform. The users have to assemble a line-up from the real player and depending on the real matches, they will get points for it. In contrast to other ICOs, the Football-Stars platform is already live having been launched into the 2017/18 season together with kicker, Germany’s biggest football magazine. The token will be introduced to Football-Stars to be used to encourage interaction of the community in Football-Stars. Users will be able to engage the football community, play challenges and start discussions that lead to a token reward. For example, a user gets rewarded every time he/she writes about football, and it triggers a discussion in the community. The reward system is therefore guaranteed by how active and influential a user is on the platform. The platform is also aiming to collaborate with other partners willing to accept its token for special football experience and products. STRYKZ 2. Ronaldhino Gaucho for SportyFi Ronaldo de Assis Moreira Ronaldhino’s tweet, dated 8th December 2017, had this to say about SportyFi, therefore proving that Ronaldhino was among the many impressive supporters and endorsers of SpotyFi. “Excellent idea and a wonderful project- a platform to connect young athletes and investors, helping them fulfil their sports potential. The token sale is going on right now, so check out the idea and support it!” Ronaldo de Assis Moreira better known as Ronaldhino is a world-class Brazilian footballer who is also FC Barcelona legend. He has won the FIFA World Player of the Year award twice and the Ballon d’Or. He also assisted Barcelona to win the UEFA Champions League, which was their first in fourteen years, La Liga titles and many other achievements in the football world. Another Brazilian football legend supporting this company is Roberto Carlos. SportyFi, which is currently known as , aims to create a platform where you can use its cryptocurrency to invest in athletes from whichever sport, be it football or basketball, across the world. Therefore it connects investors with athletes. You can also help a struggling athlete showing potential with financial backing through the platform. SportyCo SportyFi changed its name to SportyCo to create a more individual personality so as not to be confused with Spotify a music streaming platform. 3. Lionel Messi for Sirin Labs From Left to Right: Moshe Hogeg (Founder & Co-CEO Sirin Labs), Lionel Messi In Messi’s Facebook post, dated 7th December 2017, he said, “I am usually busy trying to decentralize defenses and after digging deeper into Blockchain and decentralized systems, I’m excited to join SIRIN LABS as an ambassador to make Blockchain friendlier with their upcoming operation for smartphones! Check out sirinlabs.com #Ethereum #IOTA #Bancor.” And on the same day Moshe Hogeg, the founder and CEO of SIRIN LABS confirmed Messi’s facebook post by stating on his Twitter account that, “ .” Messi is joining the Blockchain revolution as @SIRINLABS ambassador! Crazy fun times Big honor for us to partner with him Lionel Messi is an Argentinian football player currently playing for FC Barcelona. Among his impressive achievements in the football world and still counting are a record five Ballon d’Or awards, four of which he won consecutively and another five European Golden shoes. Messi has played for Barcelona throughout his entire professional career, now that is loyalty, winning 32 trophies, including four UEFA Champions League titles, nine La Liga titles and six Copas del Rey. prides itself on secure open source consumer electronics connecting the Blockchain economy with market consumers. The company already has devised the first Blockchain-enabled and cyber-protected gadgets known as FINNEY. These devices, smartphones and PC’s, were designed to support internal Blockchain applications that include, secure exchange access, crypto wallet, encrypted communications and person-to-person resource sharing ecosystem for apps and payment supported by the SRN token. SIRIN LAB 4. Michael Owen for GCOX From Left to Right: Dr Jeffrey Lin (CEO GCOX), Michael Owen Michael Owen is yet another football star who has joined Blockchain industry. At Global Crypto Offering Exchange (GCOX) Michael Own is a celebrity, private investor and member of GCOX Board of Advisors. Therefore he is not just the face of the platform but is also involved in the workings of the platform. Michael James Owen is an English former footballer who has played for Liverpool, Manchester United, and Newcastle United, Stoke City, Real Madrid and even England’s national team. In 2001 while playing for Liverpool, the team won a cup treble of the FA Cup, UEFA Cup and Football League Cup. In the same year, Owen also won the Ballon de Or. (GCOX) is the world’s first platform to allow celebrities to create and list their own Celebrity Tokens. Fans will use the Celebrity Tokens to redeem merchandise, exclusive content and personalize interaction with their favorite stars. Celebrities will also have the option of exchanging the tokens for Bitcoin or Ether before cashing out at the prevailing market rate. Global Crypto Offering Exchange GCOX co-founder and CEO, Sir Dr Jeffery Lin said, “GCOX plans to increase the adoption and acceptance of Blockchain technology and crypto tokens through the involvement of celebrities. With new social interaction platforms built on GCOX’s own Acclaim Blockchain, investor and fans will have unparalleled access to their favorite stars. Celebrities will also have the opportunity for increased engagement with their fans, further extending their reach and expanding their popularity.” Final Word Celebrities are proving to be the game changers in the ever-growing Blockchain industry. Considering the number of companies competing for customers in the same niche, new avenues of beating the competition have to be devised. And in this case, celebrities with recommendable influence work. And even though some of the celebrities are not cheap to work with their demand keeps growing as Blockchain reach increases in the market. Some celebrities are not just being used as poster boys and girls. For example, Michael Owen is already investing in the Blockchain. Luis Figo is also doing a great job at . STRYKZ Evidently, there is a huge potential on the Blockchain technology, and more discoveries are on the way that promises to revolutionize industries and introduce a new era of conducting business just as the internet did. 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Football Stars who chose to be ICO Football Ambassadors

My second passion, besides , is my local football club. I’m not a huge fan of the big commercial teams like F.C. Barcelona or the magic of Messi. They’re great teams, don’t get me wrong but for me magic in football is something entirely different, it’s what lives on the terraces, the close connection between fans, club and players and more than anything, the love we all share for the heritage we grew up with. blockchain technology Established in 1906, K Lierse SK is one of the few remaining original tradition clubs in Belgium, many international players came up through our ranks (even Romelu Lukaku). I was only six when my team won its last first division championship in 1997, marking the last time in history a small club has ever won it. These are moments no one ever forgets. To this day the feat is still known as ‘the miracle of the lion’. While this was the ‘start of the end’ and mismanagement opened the door for foreign investors, it saddens me to see that, 21 years later our club is once more on the brink of financial ruin and collapse due to the actions of a single person. The fans are currently trying to come up with a plan to ensure the club lives on. Because of this I wanted to look where blockchain could play a potential role in solving a problem not only our club faces. The solution is described in a quickly drawn up mini-paper below, enjoy! Promotion from second division to first division in 2009–2010. Problem This paper proposes a solution to fan participation in football clubs through crowdfunding and a fluid organization model referred to as Decentralized Autonomous Organizations. Crowdfunding has made it easier for small contributors to invest in large projects, while at the same time making it possible for ventures to receive financial support that might have not been possible in the past. On the flip side of the coin, small investors remain vulnerable to financial mismanagement, fraud and lack of control. The small stake in the venture may lead to a lack of power to identify problems or participate in governance. Corporate entities, including football clubs are governed by rules that describe permitted and proscribed conduct. These rules may exist as private contracts, shareholder agreements, imposed by law, written agreement between participants, … . Historically, these rules are made and controlled by a select amount of participants while the group of stakeholders is often vastly larger than management and shareholders. This leads to three fundamentalproblems, (1) people do not always follow the rules, (2) there is often no consensus on what the rule requires, (3) interest of stakeholders might not be aligned. Rule-breaking within organizations is not always obvious and motives may not matter to the stakeholders until it is too late. We propose a solution using Ethereum​, a blockchain technology like Bitcoin, that includes a turing complete programming language which allows for the creation and execution of smart contracts​ to interact with an immutable distributed ledger. The Ethereum blockchain allows for the creation of decentralized autonomous organizations​​ (DAOs) to create digital organizations without the need for central management. Football organizations are not digital organizations, but the governance can happen digitally by the stakeholders. In combination with the necessary bylaws, the decisions made digitally can be legally binding (to eg. replace central management in case of not complying with the DAO’s decisions). Blockchain Blockchain is an electronic solution to irreversibly make transactions that are stored within a ledger. Every node in the network has a copy of this ledger to check if transactions are valid. When a new transaction is made it is only added to the blockchain when enough nodes deem it as valid. The most common use case would be a form of electronic cash. Blockchain allows us to collaborate with parties that don’t trust each other or without the need of athird-party with respect for participant’s privacy. Ethereum Ethereum is what some define as blockchain 2.0, it allows to make irreversible transactions when conditions of a mutual agreed contract are met upon. These conditions are called ‘smart contracts’, they are written in a programming language called Solidity .The blockchain guarantees the correctness and validity of the contract and acts as a witness to the transactions executed through the contract. Decentralized Autonomous Organizations — Concept The code for the DAO ‘contract’ (cfr. computer program) is written in the Solidity programming language for the Ethereum blockchain. It is activated through deploying the contract onto the blockchain. Once it has been deployed the code can not be changed, this introduces a core concept: ​ “code is law”​ . The Ethereum blockchain requires ‘Ether’ to engage in transactions. Ether is the digital currency that powers the network. When the DAO is deployed, ether may be sent to the address where the smart contract is located on the blockchain. In exchange for Ether, the contract will create tokens that are assigned to the account of the sender of the Ether. These tokens grant voting and ownership rights to the owner proportional to the amount sent in Ether and the eventual total amount in tokens. This phase is known as the​ ‘crowdsale phase’​ , it’s duration and funding goals are defined in the contract code. At the core this is all a DAO does. It cannot do anything out of itself except for storing Ether and sending tokens. It cannot initiate a vote, make a player transfer or build new youth infrastructure. In order to accomplish anything the DAO needs ‘proposals’. These proposals can use the DAO’s ether to cover the expenses if there are any. Anyone with ownership tokens of the DAO can submit proposals. In order to accept/decline a proposal the remainder of theowners can cast a vote within a predefined time frame. Votes are cast weighted by the amount of tokens each voter controls. After this timeframe has passed any member can verify the result. Proposals can take any form: player transfer, staff position appointments, price of consumptions, kit design, … . Once a proposal is accepted the designated funds will be sent to the smart contract created for it. From this smart contract the designated spender (most likely the club management) can use the funds accordingly to the proposal. Because of the immutability and transparency of blockchain technology the money flow is completely auditable. Tokens Ownership tokens are divisible, transferable and traceable. Participants are free to sell or buy tokens on exchanges as they please, they are however unable to withdraw Ether from the DAO. In order for the club to always be open to receiving new funds to interested participants, the DAO will remain to issue tokens in exchange for ‘Ether’ after the crowdsale phase. The exchange rate however will be significantly lower in terms of tokens/Ether. This is to reflect the assumption that early participants take greater risk and have less information available over the eventual success. To further reward investors token holders are granted discounts for club-related purchases like season passes, tickets, fanshop items or food & drinks. These purchases are made with Ether (or a separate token to ensure price stability) which immediately flows back to the DAO. Countering Single Majority Attacks A single majority attack is a situation in which a participant or very small group of participants is able to get a majority vote and thus pass any proposal of their choosing. In a traditional DAO structure the attacker could thus make a proposal to send all of the funds to his address and approve that proposal. In terms of a football club an attacker could eg. vote himself in the manager position. There are a few technical methods that could solve this problem such as: ● Limiting the amount of tokens 1 participant can hold ● Limiting the amount of tokens 1 participant can buy in the crowdsale phase ● If a participant holds more than the required vote count for acceptance of proposals, the quorum is set to that participants weighted vote count + 1● Vote weight can never be more than 49.9% regardless of # tokens held. Since football clubs are nothing without their fans we propose an additional/ alternative solution to the problem under the form of a ‘golden token’. A golden token is the digital token equivalent to the traditional golden share. A golden share is a nominal share which is able to outvote all other shares in specified certain circumstances. Golden shares are a controversial legal topic, it is however acceptable when it acts in the common interest of stakeholders. In Dutch football some clubs implement a form of the golden share, here a golden share does not represent an actual share but a veto-right that can be cast by the fanclubs regarding club-sensitive decision such as colors, shield, ground, etc.In this concept proposals that are accepted by the general DAO would be forwarded to a separate DAO in which only holders of a ‘golden token’ can vote. Each vote has an equal amount of weight and only a 50%+1 majority is needed to accept proposals. A golden token is automatically acquired upon purchase of a season pass and will expire once the season ends. Conclusion While blockchain technology is still in its infancy a lot of its characteristics seem valuable to increase the decision-making capabilities of fans in a transparent and fair way as well as provide the opportunity for clubs to raise funds at the same time. This alternative model could be a positive change in the current climate, where clubs are owned by foreign capital, often with interests that largely differ from those of the community around the club. The downside is that the proposed model is not the most agile or secretive (when need to be) in terms of decision making. Crisis situations require fast decision making, which a voting process by many participants isn’t. Therefore some form of central control would have to remain.

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