The game will finally have official images, jerseys and crests.
The Professional Football League (LFP) announced on Wednesday the acquisition of the Mon Petit Gazon site, a famous virtual league game which claims 3 million players, an operation intended to allow Ligue 1 to dust off its consumption patterns and expand his audience.
“The Professional Football League is very pleased to announce the arrival of Mon Petit Gazon in its digital ecosystem,” wrote the LFP in a press release, without specifying the amount of the transaction.
Mon Petit Gazon (MPG), founded in 2011, is a so-called "fantasy football" game, where football fans create their team, made up of players from Ligue 1 or European championships, and face their friends every weekend. in matches where the real performance of the player is taken into account, which encourages the user to follow the matches.
MPG had initially been the subject of a complaint from the LFP for unauthorized use of its content, which was finally withdrawn with the signing in 2017 of a partnership agreement between the site and the body.
New features this season
This acquisition, which should allow the LFP to reintegrate a rapidly growing site into its fold, should allow MPG to have licensed images for the first time, such as photos of players, team shirts or club coats of arms. .
New game features are expected to be introduced as early as this season.
"We have a big chapter that opens with lots of stuff to add," commented one of the co-founders of MPG, Martin Jaglin, in a video broadcast by the site.
“We've been tinkering for ten years, we have zero photos, zero jerseys, and then all of a sudden it's Ali Baba's cave.
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Boosted by the arrival of the CVC investment fund, which has invested 1.5 billion euros in French professional football, the LFP has embarked on a vast process of developing its brand in an attempt to maintain the competitiveness of the L1.
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Its president Vincent Labrune had moreover promised last month, during the "Demain le sport" forum, the forthcoming establishment of a "very ambitious" game of "fantasy football", in order to "go to the conquest of new categories of fans”.
"This strategic agreement is part of a triple ambition: to support the digitalization of audiences for LFP competitions, to offer fans innovative content and to collaborate with the talents who help to promote French football", concluded the LFP on Wednesday.