FIFA Faces Criminal Charges Over World Cup NFTs

Gespa, a Swiss gambling authority, filed a criminal complaint against FIFA for its NFT collection. The regulator claimed that competitions for on-chain rewards may constitute unregistered betting.

Still, though, this complaint is non-binding. Gespa offered to cooperate with any prosecution efforts, but it won’t spearhead a case itself. FIFA may be able to reach a non-litigious agreement with government officials.

FIFA’s NFT Competitions

Soccer and the crypto sector have had years of overlap at this point, and FIFA has been offering its own NFTs for quite some time.

However, this trade may have brought some trouble to the football association, as Swiss authorities may pursue charges against FIFA in the near future.

Specifically, Gespa, the Swiss Gambling Supervisory Authority, alleged in a criminal complaint that FIFA’s NFT offerings may constitute gambling.

Rather than buying products directly, users enter challenges or await drops in the hope of receiving assets. Due to their monetary value, these NFTs may violate gambling regulations:

“Various competitions related to [NFT] collectibles are offered [on FIFA platforms]…Participation in the competitions is only possible in exchange for a monetary stake, with monetary benefits to be won. From a gambling law perspective, the offers in question are partly lotteries and partly sports betting,” Gespa’s complaint read.

New Distribution Schemes?

So, why is this a problem now, after several years of operation? For one thing, FIFA switched its partner in NFT generation, using Avalanche instead of Algorand as its underlying blockchain.

This brought a huge surge of activity to Avalanche and may have introduced further lottery-like mechanics into asset distribution.

Additionally, Gespa claims that it only discovered FIFA’s NFT platform this month. Until then, the regulator was apparently unaware of the competitions, such as drops and challenges, that can allow users to win NFTs.

We don’t know what alerted Gespa to these activities, but its speed of response suggests that it’s concerned.

To be clear, though, the Swiss regulator’s complaint was only one page long. It claims that law enforcement has jurisdiction over whether or not FIFA’s NFT offerings violate the law; Gespa itself takes no official position on the subject.

It offered to assist future investigations but declined to release any more information itself.

In other words, there may be a non-litigious solution here. FIFA may be able to reform its NFT distribution scheme to avoid this complaint, or the association may reach another agreement with Swiss regulators.

For now, though, we’ll have to see if local authorities attempt to pursue Gespa’s case.