La Liga, Spain’s premier football competition, has partnered with fan engagement platform, Gol-Ball, to give fans numerous merchandising opportunities.

Gol-Ball’s headline offering is the match ball used to score famous goals throughout La Liga competitions.

Gol-Ball have a patented and regulated process to identify which of the many match balls actually ended up in the back of the net, creating a unique and authentic product in the sports collectibles market.

Gol-Ball will also be offering other activations and products, to be announced on 8 January, when La Liga resumes following the FIFA World Cup.

Praising the initiative, La Liga ambassador and former player, Samuel Eto’o, said: “Throughout my career as a footballer you would normally be given a ball only after scoring a hat-trick, but you were never sure it was the ball you actually scored any of the goals with.”

“If we had been able to identify the goal scoring ball, my colleagues and I would have wanted all of them. If this is a historic moment for us, then imagine what it could mean for a fan to keep the ball,” he said.

Gol-Ball CEO, Andres Rodriguez, added: “We replaced the auction and bidding of a few with the collaboration of many.”

“We are proud that all our fans can have access to these collectibles, both in its physical and digital form.”

“This is what Web3 inspires: If we contribute a little between many, we can achieve much more than when one single person puts it all,” he finished.

This is not La Liga’s first Web 3 partnership, with previous interest in the metaverse and NFT collections.