Gespa, Switzerland’s lottery and gambling authority, has formally filed a criminal complaint against FIFA Collect, the international football governing body’s blockchain collection platform, the organization announced on Friday.
The authority had begun an initial assessment and preliminary investigation into FIFA Collect and the offering – such as the right-to-buy ticket NFTs – in early October, tellingly Declutter that it “could not rule out” whether the platform’s offering would be relevant to Swiss gambling regulation.
After further investigation, the aggregation platform has now been reported to the relevant authorities.
“During the investigation, suspicions were confirmed that collect.fifa.com offers gambling services that are not licensed in Switzerland and are therefore illegal,” Gespa said in a written statement. “Gespa is obliged to inform the competent prosecutorial authorities if it becomes aware of violations of the federal law on gambling.”
According to the regulator, participation in selected competitions on the platform that offer monetary benefits is only possible “in exchange for a monetary stake,” which ultimately provides rewards through random draw or similar procedures.
“From a gambling law perspective, the offers in question are part lotteries and part sports betting (right-to-final),” the report said.
Further information about the criminal complaint and the procedure is not currently being shared, Gespa director Manuel Richard said Declutter.
The “right-to-final” the authority is referring to refers to a new collectible offered by FIFA called “right-to-buy” (RTB). This collective designation offers NFT holders the opportunity to purchase from an allocated allocation of FIFA World Cup tickets for the upcoming 2026 World Cup hosted in North America.
RTB collectibles, which guarantee a user the ability to skip the general queue of potential ticket buyers, can be purchased or revealed via collectible packs on the platform, or purchased on the secondary marketplace.
On the secondary marketthese collectibles can range from approximately $98 for the right to purchase tickets to a group match round in Houston to $6,000 for the right to purchase a ticket to the opening match at Azteca Stadium in Mexico.
FIFA is selling tickets for the world’s biggest football sporting event in several phases. The organization recently announced that this is already the case sold more than 1 million tickets through the early Visa presale.
The football organization’s blockchain collection platform was originally developed Algorand in 2022, but earlier this year FIFA announced her departure of the proof-of-stake blockchain. Instead, FIFA opted for it create its own Avalanche L1 network to support the platform.
A FIFA representative did not immediately respond Decode request for comment.