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A global soccer league of imaginary teams and players created by Australian start-up One Future Football (1FF) has attracted over 3 million Australian dollars (R37.5 million) in funding from investors.
Sports stars such as Nick Kyrgios, Steve Smith and Naomi Osaka are involved with the project either as investors or as ambassadors.
This is according to the Sydney Morning Herald, which said the digital league should be thought of as a game of Fifa except a computer is in charge of both teams and the results are determined by thousands of data points which are channeled through an artificial intelligence (AI) engine.
Fans can watch what is effectively a computer-simulated digital soccer game for free on YouTube and TikTok.
A second AI engine generates backstories, narratives and controversies for the players in the league.
The league comprises 12 digital teams with over 250 digitally generated players, each with a backstory, unique skills and personality traits.
"What if there was a club from Tokyo and you could lean in on their story and their culture, and a club from South London and a club from Brazil? It was a very slippery slope from there.
"What about the players? What if we had a player who had a backstory, who had their own social media page, their own brand? We'd need a face," said Peter Davis, one of the founders of 1FF.
There is one African team in the league, the Nigeria-based Naija United FC. The teams are from different parts of the world, meaning this is technically the "world's first global football league", according to 1FF.
The main revenue drivers are in-game sponsorships, advertisements and the sale of "player cards", which enable fans to partially own the players in the teams and earn points based on their performance.
Sydney Morning Herald said there was currently no way to bet on the digital matches.
