If you’re new to this world, we’ve created a “Web3 Education” section in Discord, including a list of frequently asked questions below (and on the server).

If you have any questions that are not addressed on this list, jump into Discord and ask away.

What is a ‘DAO’?

A ‘DAO’ is a Decentralized Autonomous Organization.

Think of a DAO like a digital cooperative that is collectively owned and managed by its members and run by a set of rules formed by the DAO’s community through democratic vote.

Because a DAO is built on transparent technology and code used by blockchains (more on that below), it means that all DAO rules are always publicly accessible and impossible for a single person or entity to change.

The DAO’s decisions are governed by vote, so everyone in the organization has a voice and nobody’s meaningful input is disregarded or dismissed because of hierarchical status like it might in a traditional company structure.

The DAO has a treasury that nobody can access without group approval, removing the risk of executive misuse of funds, and all transactions and financial data are shared publicly so there’s no potential for fraudulent reporting.

Unlike a traditional company, which is necessarily tied to a physical location, a DAO has no headquarters and membership that can come from anywhere in the world.

In essence, instead of being run top-down by people working together physically (as is usually the case in a traditional company), a DAO is an organization run by a set of rules and code, where all data is transparent and everyone has a vote, no matter where they are.

We are launching football.xyz as a DAO because we not only want to empower fans to support football in new ways, but because we believe in accountability and transparency for the sport of football as a whole.

You can read more about DAOs here.

What is ‘cryptocurrency’?

A cryptocurrency is a form of payment that can be exchanged for goods and services. Just as ‘traditional’ fiat currencies (the US dollar, the Euro, etc) derive their value from the governments that print them, cryptocurrencies derive their value from the organizations that mint them. They are convertible with other cryptocurrencies, fiat currencies, and other assets.

There are a number of popular cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc), all with their own benefits and utilities.

DAOs commonly create their own cryptocurrency, or ‘token’.

Coinbase: “What is cryptocurrency?”

What is a ‘blockchain’?

A blockchain is a public digital ledger that tracks activity (such as the buying and selling of Bitcoin) and stores the data in countless devices around the globe that are all constantly verifying the transactions with each other.

This transparent group verification prevents a single person or organization from altering data or activity that has occurred on the blockchain and protects the value and interests of all participants.

Our goal is to build a community-led organization with blockchain technology because we know the potential for corruption and manipulation in football and want to protect against it.

Coinbase: “What is a blockchain?”

What are ‘smart contracts’?

Smart contracts are programs built on the blockchain that "automatically execute, control or document legally relevant events and actions according to the terms of a contract or an agreement." In other words, they are exactly like a traditional contract with two important differences:

1. Smart contracts don't require third parties for confirmation and execution. They are 'hard-coded’ to execute the terms of the contract when the preset conditions are met which dramatically increases the efficiency and lowers the cost for contracts.

2. Smart contracts are publicly visible contracts that can't be reversed. This provides security for all parties to the contract, enables trust for agreements of all sizes, and enables lightning-fast, low-cost transactions and agreements.

Smart contracts are a foundational component of DeFi and are used by every cryptocurrency, DeFi platform, and DAO.

Coinbase: “What is a smart contract?” Wikipedia: “Smart Contract” IBM: “Smart Contracts Defined”

What is a ‘token’?

From Coinbase: Technically, “token” is just another word for “cryptocurrency” or “cryptoasset.” But increasingly it has taken on a couple of more specific meanings depending on context. The first is to describe all cryptocurrencies besides Bitcoin and Ethereum (even though they are technically also tokens). The second is to describe certain digital assets that run on top of another cryptocurrencies’ blockchain, as many decentralized finance (or DeFi) tokens do. Tokens have a huge range of potential functions, from helping make decentralized exchanges possible to selling rare items in video games. But they can all be traded or held like any other cryptocurrency.

What is ‘decentralized finance (DeFi)’?

DeFi is the term for all financial goods and services built on the blockchain. The financial goods and services are provided on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks instead of through financial institutions and intermediaries of the traditional financial sector like banks and investment firms. This means DeFi offers many advantages over traditional finance such as:

• Reduced costs

• Less paperwork

• Faster transactions

• Open to everyone

The ideal example of DeFi is a service that runs autonomously through blockchain technology and smart contracts, but the concept of DeFi has broadened to include most any application that uses the blockchain and cryptocurrencies to provide alternative financial products.

Coinbase: “What is DeFi?”

What is ‘decentralization’? And how is it different from “centralization”?

A decentralized organization is one where ownership and decision-making ability is held by all members, not just a few. For example, co-ops and communes are decentralized organizations as members vote on organizational positions and laws while all sharing in the profit and rewards of the organization.

On the other hand, Facebook is a centralized organization in which the members (all Facebook users) are subject to the decisions of a few people, don't have a say in the company direction, and don't get rewarded for their support and use of the platform.

Decentralization is more than just an organizational structure— it is a commitment to keep the power, profits, and promise of an organization in the hands of the people who made it successful. In our case, we want to enable fans of soccer clubs to form organizations that can acquire and control a part or the whole of their club.

What is ‘Web3’?

The term "Web3" (or web3, Web 3.0, Web 3, etc) is an all-encompassing term to describe the new shape of the internet-enabled by larger blockchain principles and technology. Before launching into the different components of web3 and how we plan to use it to improve the beautiful game, let's go through a very short explainer...

Web 1.0 This was the first era of the internet where few people could publish online but people with a computer could access and read information. This era of the internet was extremely centralized with only a few servers hosting all data and websites.

Web 2.0 This is regarded as the current era of the internet where anyone can publish, access, and read information. This present era of the internet is more decentralized in that everyone can easily publish content, but still very centralized in terms of who profits from and hosts activity and data.

Web 3.0 This is the newest era of the internet where anyone can publish, access, and read information but also control, host and profit from their data and activity. This era of the internet is completely decentralized and allows people and groups to receive direct benefits for expertise and activity. We are currently emerging from Web 2.0 and crossing over into the Web 3.0 era.

How can Web3 help football?

There are myriad ways Web3 innovation can benefit football on industry-wide levels, but we have a particular interest in how it can serve supporters and their clubs. In the modern era, we have seen countless clubs spend unsustainably, engage in business dealings misaligned with fan values, and close crucial avenues to supporter engagement, support, and scrutiny.

Web3 offers clear avenues for fan ownership of clubs — or, at minimum, increased club-side transparency, community development, and making decision-making genuine, collaborative, and meaningful with an engaged fanbase.

How can a DAO purchase a football club?

While the idea of a DAO owning a football club is exciting, we’re afraid the process of acquiring a club is extensive and rather boring to explain. In basic terms, though, a DAO can purchase a football club just like any other organization can - by providing the current owner with the requested value and terms of the sale contract. Just because a DAO is a web3 organization does not mean it can’t transact with non-web3 businesses - in fact, simplifying this process and building bridges between these two worlds is one of our overarching goals!

Standard business practices such as Due Diligence will be used throughout the acquisition process with all information being provided to the DAO members in a fully transparent process. At this time, the members of the DAO will also be having internal discussions over the degree to which the DAO will provide management for the club. This will be determined on a case-by-case basis, decided by popular vote of the members, and always subject to change via additional vote(s).

Terms for the acquisition will be negotiated between the current owner and the DAO, and as with any contract where one side consists of multiple parties, the DAO will decide internally on whether or not it agrees to the terms and conditions of the contract. Funds for the club acquisition will be raised through sales of digital assets by the DAO with the funds then transferred to the current owner in the currency which they request at which point the DAO will own the club.

While at present there are some restrictions regarding how decentralized ownership groups are formed and operate in certain national associations and league setups, there is ample opportunity (that will only grow with time) to explore club ownership through DAOs.

Once you’ve joined the football.xyz Discord, head to our #club-ops channel to learn our vision, see recent updates, and get involved with the community helping us make this a reality! (Please note, you may need to be approved as a Contributor to see the channel).

How could a football club be impacted by a DAO?

There are many ways a DAO can participate in a football club — not merely acquisition and operation. Beyond coming together to buy a team and ensure transparent business practices and genuine fan oversight are embedded in the operation, a DAO can also help supporters collectivize, remunerate each other for currently-voluntary tasks, and leverage the tools of Web3 to vote on group action.

Whether it’s helping a supporters’ trust achieve better communication and decision-making mechanics, structure an approach to secure a minority stake in their club, or simply achieve better avenues to unite fellow fans from near and far, a DAO can help address community structures that are outdated, informal, or offline in a globally-connected era of football.

What about fans whose club is getting bought? What say will they have if they are not in the DAO?

It is our commitment that anything driven by our DAO puts fans at the very heart of any operation, particularly those physically embedded in the club’s local community.

This necessarily will include meaningful representation in decision-making, transparent business practices, clear mechanisms in place to ensure the proper protection of tradition and culture, and ideally extends to supporter equity. We will work closely with fan groups to give everyone access. There will always be future opportunities for fans to join the DAO and get involved.

If there are any other questions — no matter how basic — feel free to ask in Discord. This list is ever-evolving and we aim to have a comprehensive introduction for all.

💬 Join our Discord and help build the future of football 🐦 Follow us on Twitter and stay up-to-date

If you've kicked a ball — or something that kicks like one — you belong to an active community measured in billions.

For the past decade, we've documented the world's love for the world's game on Where Is Football and collected thousands more snapshots and stories in an effort to explore football from all sides - at its most beautiful, its most complex, its most fearless, and its most representative.

We've wanted to explore how this game with so much history and heritage unites us collectively in moments like this:

Or this:

Or this:

Together, with the help of our community numbering in the hundreds of thousands, we've discovered how — whether on the internet or in the stadium, on the pitch or in the pub, with our mates or with strangers — football’s uniquely shared senses of awe, ecstasy, heartbreak, and belonging have the power to unite our world.

Whether you’re playing on concrete in New Jersey, a beach in Rio, a neighborhood field in Nepal, or a perfectly-manicured pitch under the floodlights in London, this game unites us all and cuts across borders, frontiers, and fears.

That is priceless.

But, so many of the game's institutions, with all their appetite for profit and glitz, have shown they do indeed have a price — and that has come at a great cost to the soul of the sport that the world loves.

Cautionary tales of football’s modern era filled with hyper-commercialization are abundant, with countless clubs entering administration (bankruptcy) or selling their souls to wealthy investors — whether an energy drink, an oligarch, a sovereign wealth fund, or a dictator.

We continue to see these stories play out — a sport falling away from sustainability, away from transparency, away from the moral foundations of its institutions, and away from those that keep it alive: its fans.

We’re here to change that.

Now is the time to level the playing field, fall back in love with football, and give every fan the chance to take ownership.

Literally.

Now is the time to be bold, to reclaim the soul of our sport, and to bring the transparency, security and accessibility of web3 to the world of football.

It’s time for us to work to get fans the power they deserve at their clubs and change the industry for the better.

It's time to speak plainly and simply about how short-termism, nepotism, dishonesty, and greed contribute to an industry completely devoid of meaningful supporter representation and focused on a race to the bottom for centralized financial benefit.

Where Is Football is changing to meet this moment.

We've always seen ourselves, first and foremost, not as an outlet but as a community that belongs to everyone - so now we're truly becoming that, with the aim of helping other entities do the same.

We are launching a DAO, a decentralized autonomous organization, that will be a self-governing cooperative dedicated to making football better.

We are launching football.xyz.

Our first goal is to build a large global community that pioneers new approaches to club ownership, governance, and finance in the sport, rooted in consensus building, web3 technology, and open-source use for fan communities around the world.

After assembling this network of advocates, experts, and innovators, we will aim to expand our membership and acquire a football club — in partnership with their existing fanbase — to demonstrate through a real-world example the industry-revolutionizing potential of DAOs.

Eventually, through the use of sub-DAOs, we aim to onboard more teams into the DAO ownership and collective model, reimagine football club and industry operations through open-source, transparent web3 technology and practices, and establish tokenized football-attached communities, causes and professions.

From blockchain to smart contracts to truly democratic governance, this emerging web3 era can usher in a new age for the sport — one developed in a spirit of supporter solidarity, alongside club and investor accountability — not just the rise of dubious fan tokens and rewards apps.

We are at a critical juncture. The soul, structure, and sustainability of football are under threat more and more each year. Our careers have been spent working with some of the biggest teams in the world but also volunteering with the clubs in our communities. We have seen firsthand how out of touch football has become at the top and how the issues of myopia, nepotism, and greed that plague the sport at its most elite levels have filtered down the pyramid to its base. We know that any realistic hope for the health of the game revolves around a global community coming together.

The web3 ecosystem enables us to develop a strong foundation and vision for the future of the football industry - one developed in a spirit of solidarity, transparency, and accountability that will allow us to answer the following questions, and so many more...

• What if a fanbase could govern their team via a DAO model in order to have a true say in its team’s future?

• What if grassroots clubs that presently rely on volunteer involvement from fans could remunerate their supporters for their contributions?

• What does it look like when blockchain technology’s philosophy of transparency reinvents how teams and industry organizations operate?

• How can the efficiencies of smart contracts be implemented into club processes to facilitate low-fee payments, streamline matchday ticketing and more?

• How does migrating traditional ownership models to web3 technology shift power away from the disengaged few, the overzealous greedy, and the selfishly powerful into the hands of passionate, conscientious and enthusiastic fans?

Football isn’t called “the beautiful game” because money has made the sport’s elite competitions a global spectacle worth trillions of dollars.

Football is called “the beautiful game” because it belongs to everyone.

Join the Club: 💬 Join our Discord and help shape the future of football 🐦 Follow us on Twitter and stay up-to-date