# FOOTBALL
Twitter and Goal launch live World Cup show.
Twitter and Goal have announced that they are kicking off the 2018 FIFA World Cup with the launch of the first sports live show in the MENA region, “#YallaGoal”, on the platform. Hosted in Arabic, the biweekly evening show will focus on football related news on Twitter during the tournament. The show premiered three days before the World Cup, on June 11.
The show, produced by Goal, will cover a variety of World Cup topics including insights, football-related entertainment and celebrity news.
The editorial insights will include debates, team and player reviews and analysis, followed by entertainment segments that will feature live Twitter polls and Q&As, humour and competitions. The celebrity segment will feature exclusive interviews with guests from across the region.
Sponsors include Rani, Unilever’s Axe, Rexona, Clear and Lipton brands and Infiniti. These sponsorships will allow Twitter-tailored audiences – in this case Arab speaking football fans – to access and view the live episodes, which will appear as Promoted Tweets, while they’re scrolling through their timelines.
#YallaGoal will include World Cup match recaps and Twitter reactions in a form of live video to appeal to a globally and socially connected Arab audience. Goal’s correspondents in Russia will take viewers through tournament highlights as they unfold on the ground, via live video calls. The show will be hosted by two content creators, Hany Hathout (@ HHathout) and Abdulaziz Al Abdan (@azizooghali).
“There have been shifts in media consumption and fandom behaviour since the World Cup’s 2014 edition. Twitter has evolved significantly since then too, thanks to video and the hyper-engaged, live conversation that happens on Twitter,” said Kinda Ibrahim, director of media partnerships, MENA, at Twitter. “The Twitter exclusive show will reach fans while they’re on the go through their mobile devices, and allow them to view and engage with the best curated real- time conversation around the tournament.”
The live stream will be free and accessible globally to logged-in and logged-out users on Twitter and connected devices. The show will air on different days and times of the week, after key fixtures and match days played by the Arab teams, via @GoalAR.