September 30, 2022, Nairobi/London. The Football Foundation for Africa (FFA) today announces a partnership with The Sports DAO Ltd. to implement a long-term plan for FFA to apply blockchain technologies in building a better future for grassroots football in Africa.

The collaboration will create educational programmes and ownership values enabled by blockchain technologies to add to the extant benefits of the beautiful game.

The partnership aims at providing education as one of the fundamental values of society to improve people’s lives and sustainable development. The same belief applies to the football industry in Africa and beyond. The FFA will focus on delivering technology-focused education programmes to young people with a passion and gift for the sport to enhance their employability and entrepreneurial skills. 

In their first project together for the Africa Football Business Summit in October 2022, FFA and the Sports Dao will issue non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and use this as a platform to educate people about emerging blockchain technologies while also providing a practical application at the summit.

Brian Wesaala, the founder of FFA and a computer science practitioner, recognises the potential of blockchain technology and its related educational values. “FFA is ready to embrace the strategy around the blockchain,” he says. “I am very happy to partner with The Sports DAO, whose founder Dr Lingling Liu is a leading football business executive and an early adopter of Web3 technologies for sports business. We will together explore blockchain as a means to unlock more resources for grassroots football communities in Africa.”

“We are excited at the prospect of a long-term partnership, which will focus on community and socially responsible ESG (Environmental Social and Governance) standards and policies, and the sustainability and ethical impact of an investment in football in Africa,” says Dr Lingling Liu of The Sports Dao. “Our partnership will realise the spirit of DAO (Decentralised Autonomous Organisation) on Cardano blockchain.”

The FFA’s vision is to create member-owned communities without centralised leadership. The decentralisation nature of blockchain technology makes it possible for football fans not only to follow their beloved sports but also to become the owner of the sports and to join the process of making important decisions.

Joining forces with the FFA and the Sports DAO is NMKR, the world’s leading infrastructure brand on the Cardano blockchain. “The Football Foundation for Africa and the Sports DAO are our dream partners to onboard sports in Africa to our web3 ecosystem. Their focus on sustainability and scalability is a perfect fit to our approach to using technology in the right way. We are thrilled to welcome the football industry in Africa to our ever-growing blockchain infrastructure.“ says Kristian A. Portz, COO of NMKR.

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For media inquiries, please contact:

The Sports DAO
Max O’Neill
Email: max.oneill@thesportsdao.io

About The Football Foundation for Africa

The Football Foundation for Africa (known as the FFA) is a social enterprise that seeks to drive investment in grassroots development in Africa, with the ultimate goal of improving the quality of opportunities in football and on the continent.

The story of FFA began in January 2015 when Allan ‘Obama’ Onyango lost his life tragically in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. A talented footballer and budding IT professional, Allan moved to Tanzania in search of work after failing to secure gainful employment in his native Kenya.

A year later, under the leadership of Brian Wesaala, friends and former teammates of Obama organised the inaugural Obama Cup to celebrate their friendship and enjoy that which brought them together, football. Following the successful event, Mr Wesaala decided to make Obama Cup an annual tournament that coincided with his visits home. Brian was at the time, based in Geneva, Switzerland, working as an IT professional with the United Nations. 

Mr Wesaala says his mission is to protect the foundations of African football, namely talent and passion, through the promotion of better governance of the beautiful game at all levels.

visit FFA: https://footballfoundation.africa

About The Sports DAO

The Sports DAO Ltd is a UK-based consultancy with a mission to empower sports organisations and projects using emerging Web3 technologies. We reimagine and re-engineer the sports industry and deliver value to sports communities around the world. Sports DAO aims to create a world where athletes, fans, and businesses are empowered to make an impact on the sports they love, exactly the way they have imagined.
visit: https://www.thesportsdao.io

About NMKR

NMKR is the world‘s leading brand for creating a suite of tools that help companies, artists, developers, and self-starters to develop blockchain businesses. With a strong focus on accessibility, NMKR has created a mix of easy-to-use development APIs and no-code building blocks, which can be combined in a modular way.
visit NMKR: https://www.nmkr.io