Dubai, UAE, June 6, 2018:  Twitter and Goal today announced that they are kicking off the 2018 FIFA World Cup™ with the launch of the first sports live show in the Middle East & North Africa 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 premiers three days leading up to 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 as well as opta analyses, followed by entertainment segments that will feature live Twitter polls and Q&A’s, humorous moments and competitions for viewers. As for the celebrity segment, it will feature exclusive interviews with guests from across the region. 

 

Sponsors include Rani, Unilever’s Axe, Rexona, Clear and Lipton brands, as well as 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. Goals’ 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 behavior since the World Cup 2014’s 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.”

 

Ahmet Yavuz, Head of Content for Goal MENA said: '#YallaGoal is the perfect example of how Goal is constantly looking for innovative ways to bring football to both existing and new audiences. Russia 2018 is going to be fantastic World Cup, with four Arab countries taking part and many promising players. The live show is hosted by two fantastic Arabic talents and will be leveraging Goal’s global army of content creators to deliver the most informative and entertaining show in the region.”

 

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. Premiering ahead of the World Cup on 11 June at 10PM DXB, the show’s tournament episodes will kick off on the first day of the games on 14 June at 9PM DXB.  

 

According to recent research conducted by Hall & Partners in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and UAE with Twitter users who intend to follow the 2018 World Cup, 97% of respondents are excited about this year’s games. The majority (72%) said that Twitter is their go-to place for World Cup content, most of whom (54%) plan to access Twitter to watch video highlights of the games. 

 

Across MENA, Goal’s engaged audience is in excess of 20 million. Globally, Goal has 67 million monthly users and more than 50 million social followers.