DFL Conduct Trial of Vertical Screen Streaming of Bundesliga Game

At the weekend, many matches attracted headlines for what happened on field.

Ole Gunnar Solksjaer and Manchester United stunned the reigning champions of England in their own backyard, perhaps alleviating the pressure on the 1999 Champions League Final hero.

Celtic defeated Rangers in a fierce Old Firm derby final despite Steven Gerrard’s side dominating the game and playing with one extra man for most of the second half.

Finally, we saw Juventus slip up again in the Serie A. Lazio stunned ‘La Donna Vecchia’ in a 3-1 win at the Stadio Olimpico, concurrently opening up the title race.

But perhaps some of the most interesting news for football fans, especially those who stream 99% of the games they watch was that the first vertically-streamed game of football took place in the Bundesliga.

Werder Bremen gained a valuable three points with a 3-2 win against VFL Wolfsburg. But the news of the DFL’s trial stream comes as very fascinating, given the situation streaming is currently in.

Amazon Prime recently streamed a full round of Premier League action for the first time, which will hopefully become a constant for fans everywhere. As we know oh so well here in Australia, Optus is the major service provider for games in the Premier League, Champions League and the Europa League.

But vertical streaming will allow many fans a different perspective on the game. Many can watch games horizontally through their mobile devices. But this concept is uncharted territory. So far.

Andreas Heyden, Executive President of the DFL for digital innovations, said that the growing rate of vertical videos on social media sites led to the development of a vertical streaming service for games.

“We see that vertical videos in social media on mobile devices are better received than ones in horizontal orientation. The successful test in Wolfsburg provides us with a good basis for further considerations as to how we can do even better justice to this usage behaviour in the future.”

Watching football from a horizontal perspective is something we often take for granted when watching a game. Not that it’s a privilege, more so that it’s the way we’ve always viewed the sport, either live or otherwise.

Traditionalists may perhaps believe that this is a step too far and that the current methods are more than adequate and don’t require changing. But vertical viewing is an interesting proposition and as football fans, we’d be remiss to not see what it has to offer.

The DFL will conduct its own review of the stream before deciding to open it up to all of us, but in the name of being progressive, it’s hard to see them not giving it a shot at the very least.

What are your thoughts on this innovative way of watching soccer from the comfort of your own couch? Or even bed, in this instance? Get involved in the discussion on Twitter @Soccersceneau

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Caelum Ferrarese is a Senior journalist with Soccerscene. He reports widely on micro policy within Australasia and industry disruptions at grassroots level.

FIFA+ delivering valuable exposure for Oceania football

The Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) is partnering with FIFA’s football streaming platform, FIFA+, to broadcast its international and club competitions for two years.

The deal signifies a major win for the commercialisation and promotion of Oceanian football globally.

FIFA+ is a mobile and desktop application that provides subscribers with live streaming of various FIFA competitions, magazine shows, documentary films, and archived matches from previous tournaments.

The application will televise all major OFC competitions, such as the OFC Champions League (Men’s, women’s and youth), futsal and beach soccer competitions, and the men’s 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifying campaign.

The World Cup qualifying campaign takes on greater importance this year, as for the first time ever, OFC nations will battle for one automatic spot at the 2026 Men’s FIFA World Cup.

It represents an important moment for Oceanian football, and while there is global scepticism about FIFA’s move to a 48-team men’s World Cup, it is the smaller nations like those in Oceania who will benefit greatly.

Adding OFC’s collaboration with FIFA+ to the mix only incentivises players and coaches further, providing them a platform to build their careers and future pathways.

“This partnership with FIFA+ marks a new era for Oceania football. It’s a monumental step towards realising our dreams and showcasing the talents of our region to a global audience,” OFC General Secretary Franck Castillo said via press release.

“We are excited about the opportunities this collaboration unlocks and the new horizons it opens for our players, teams, and fans.”

The increased coverage will be crucial to OFC’s commercial endeavours and future sustainability as an organisation. General Secretary Castillo paid tribute to the efforts of OFC members to secure this deal.

“In the last five years, OFC has gone to great lengths to grow football coverage across the Pacific and provide quality broadcast production standards to all fans,” he added via media release.

“As a testament to these efforts, our social media following has increased by 110% and live streaming views by 200% since 2019. We have rallied media rights in the broadcast space and expanded our distribution from four regional TV broadcasters to 26.”

“We have also expanded commercially through selling our live streaming, media and data rights for the next two years – 2024 and 2025; this is a major step forward for us in the commercial space.”

Below is the full list of competitions to be shown live and free on FIFA+ in 2024:

OFC Women’s Champions League – Solomon Islands | 10-23 March

OFC Men’s Nations Cup – Qualifying – Tonga | 20-26 March

OFC U-19 Men’s Championship – Qualifying – Vanuatu | 9-15 April

OFC U-16 Men’s Championship – Qualifying – Tonga | 13-19 April

OFC Futsal Men’s Champions League – New Caledonia | 23-28 April

OFC Men’s Champions League – Tahiti | 11-24 May

OFC U-16 Women’s Championship – Qualifying – New Zealand | 14-20 June

OFC Men’s Nations Cup – Vanuatu | 15-30 June

OFC U-19 Men’s Championship – Samoa | 7-20 July

OFC U-16 Men’s Championship – Tahiti | 28 July-10 August

OFC Futsal Women’s Nations Cup – Solomon Islands | 18-24 August

FIFA World Cup 2026™ – Oceania Qualifiers MD 1 & 2 – Samoa | 2-10 September

OFC U-16 Women’s Championship – Fiji | 8-21 September

FIFA World Cup 2026™ – Oceania Qualifiers MD 3 – New Zealand & Vanuatu | 7-15 October

OFC Beach Soccer Men’s Nations Cup – Solomon Islands | 20-26 October

FIFA World Cup 2026™ – Oceania Qualifiers MD 4 & 5 – New Zealand & Papua New Guinea | 11-19 November

Premier League clubs vote to tighten sponsorship rules

The Premier League has implemented stricter regulations aimed at preventing clubs from inflating sponsorship and transfer deals with entities linked to their owners.

These revised rules were approved by a ‘very narrow’ majority in a club vote last month and aim to address concerns about Profit and Sustainability Rules and maintaining a level playing field within the league.

The process will now work where the clubs must demonstrate the legitimacy of these transactions. They must provide a declaration from an associated party director confirming their belief in the deal’s fair market value.

Then an independent commission will review each of these deals, make a decision and impose a range of sanctions for any breaches they find. The severity of the offence will determine the penalty.

It is understood that the vote was not unanimous, with the league scraping through their ‘two-thirds majority’ rule with 14 of the 20 clubs agreeing to this policy.

Manchester City and Newcastle were reportedly part of the few clubs that staunchly opposed this policy and both clubs are in the spotlight having entered multiple commercial deals with brands from the same countries as their owners over recent years.

This has become an obvious integrity issue with the way clubs have inflated deals with affiliated entities in order to meet the stricter FFP thresholds that have seen clubs like Everton and Nottingham Forest punished, the former with a six-point deduction.

It became an interesting discussion after big clubs like Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester United and Tottenham voted in favour of these new strict rules after recently being passed by Newcastle and Manchester City in commercial revenue.

Out of the 115 FFP charges that Manchester City face, the ones that could impose the biggest sanction are directly related to this topic, with the club earning over 13 times more in 2022/23 than they did in 2008 when the takeover first occurred, indicating a potential exaggeration of revenue from their Middle Eastern sponsors.

The Premier League claims that these revisions will ensure long-term financial sustainability while promoting fairness amongst clubs as they try to prevent other clubs from gaining an unfair advantage through non-market practices.

With Leicester City, Everton and Nottingham Forest charged in the last month, there is a clear crackdown on clubs breaking the Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR).

It is certainly a step in the right direction for the Premier League who are seeing more clubs spend seemingly above their means without any harsh regulatory or legal checks that could potentially damage the integrity of the competition.

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