Futaa.com

Covering football stories and events globally has turned out to be a huge activity and business for many people. Over the last few years, bloggers have taken it upon themselves to dissect matches for fans and to analyze issues (whether economic or social) in in the footballing arena.These blogs serve an integral role in modern soccer. They keep fans up to date on important soccer events worldwide, and provide us with unique perspectives of these occurrences in sport.In this essay I will focus on one blog, futaa.com (http://www.futaa.com/). This is an East African based blog that mainly reports on soccer stories in the African continents and also closely follows European soccer. A pioneer of online news in Kenya and the East African region at large, Futaa.com was launched almost a decade ago. The blog currently publishes in five countries: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, and Zambia.

The homepage of Futaa.com is very user-friendly, enabling new fans to easily navigate its portal. It has well-structured sections ranging from Tournaments, Fixtures, News, Kenyans (players) abroad e.t.c. The five countries mentioned above have specific portals within the website, located at lower end of the site. The Kenyan portal for instance will be filled by football news and stories emanating locally from Kenya, primarily revolving about the Kenyan Premier League, updating readers with instant results from matches. On the website’s results section, outcomes of top European league games are displayed also. Fans of the English Premier League, La Liga, Series A, League 1 and Bundesliga will be lucky because the blog extensively covers these leagues.The betting segment is perhaps the most unique feature of this blog. Unlike most other football blogs, Futaa.com has dedicated an entire section to its gambling fans. Regardless of your personal opinion on the moral integrity of gambling, betting on soccer matches has become a rising phenomenon. In Kenya for instance, Sportpesa, one of the most popular betting sites, has exponentially risen in the last four years and even currently has a jersey dealership with English Premier League’s club Everton FC.  In this section, the blog provides brief analysis for matches prior to game commencement and provide game odds. These odds are primarily based on a team’s form (recent and past), key players missing or available for the match, and the implication of the game’s result to both teams, home or away advantage and much more. They display each team’s performance for the last five matches. On the upcoming Champions League fixture between Paris Saint-Germain and Real Madrid, for instance, Futaa.com advised its readers to bet for a PSG win even though their key player Neymar Jr will miss the game, because PSG had a more at stake, and had the home-advantage. This is of course intended to inform gamblers on what bets to place or avoid. This could partially explain the quick rise of gambling among young people in countries like Kenya.

Though the content of Futaa.com is often shallow and brief, don’t be surprised when they deeply examine some issues concerning the sport once in a while. On its recent piece on the upcoming World Cup in Russia, 100 days to World Cup – your ultimate   guide (http://www.futaa.ng/article/147295/100-days-to-world-cup-your-ultimate-guide), Futaa.com provides a countdown to the tournament’s key fixtures and events like the opening ceremony. The piece also briefly outlines the major stadiums in Russia and their proximity relative to one another, to inform fans planning to attend the tournament to arrange their travelling once in Russia. As expected and interestingly, this piece also provides a prediction of which teams are projected to lift the trophy come the final match in July, just to make fans more anxious about the long-awaited tournament. Brazil, Germany, Argentina, France, Spain, Belgium and England are mentioned as favorites.

Overall, Futaa.com is a great football blog that provides a unique and extensive variety of contents ranging from pre and post-match analysis, to news, to transfer rumors to betting tips and much more. As with many more sport sports, Futaa.com also plays an integral role in providing soccer fans a common and bigger platform to share their thoughts in the comments sections. Honestly, this is usually my best part of this blog, or part of any blog for that matter. In this modern era of technology and internet, online blogs have provided football fans across the globe a common platform where they can debate almost every topic relating to the sport. From the corruption scandal plaguing FIFA and the World Cup 2022 in Qatar, to a referee’s sneaky controversial call in a Kenyan Premier League match, football fans can debate just any topic.I would recommend Futaa.com to any reader who wants brief and entertaining updates on local and international footballing news, fixtures, analysis and much more. And as the World Cup gets closer, I would particularly recommend Futaa.com for updates leading to the tournament, and the deep analysis they’ll provide on teams from Africa like Nigeria and Egypt.