The FIFA World Cup is just around the corner, with the draw taking place at the end of this week. To engage with fans as much as possible FIFA have launched the official companion app for the tournament (and seemingly worldwide, club level football at the same time). The app’s been launched simply with the name ‘FIFA’, suggesting that instead of just being the World Cup companion app, this is going to be an ongoing resource for football fans around the world.
On first opening the app, it’s quite a daunting experience; there’s quite literally everything you could want to know about football in the app. Grant it access to your location and it will pick a national team and a favourite league for you, which is a nice touch but as an Englishman in Wales I had to go and adjust the settings for my team for the World Cup. You can also pick up to three favourite leagues to follow, these are simply sorted by continent and then country. Saving it to your favourites allows you to just open the app and for it to be there for you, no log-in is required.
Tap into the World Cup area of the app and see (at the moment) a countdown to the final draw. On the 6th of December it promises to allow you to follow the draw live and see how your country fares, it would be a really nice touch if you could see it via video stream, but I would imagine it will just display the draws as they’re made. In addition to this there is a news section to read all about the most interesting stories from around the world and a FIFA world rankings tab to see what standing your team has in the world.
I’ve only just scratched the surface of the app in this review, it really is huge. Considering they’ve packed so much information into the app it’s quite simple to navigate but even after twenty minutes of navigating my way around this morning, I still got a bit lost at times. Overall though it’s a fantastic app for any football fan and will be a valuable tool during the World Cup season next year.