FIFA’s Official Prediction Market Is an Obscure Abu Dhabi Blockchain Startup

FIFA just handed the keys to its prediction market to a startup with no product, no users, and a principal council member who settled insider trading charges months ago. On April 2, the world’s governing body of football named ADI Predictstreet as the first-ever Official Prediction Market Partner of the FIFA World Cup 2026. The multi-year deal gives a barely-formed Abu Dhabi blockchain company exclusive rights to run forecasting markets for the biggest sporting event on the planet.

The platform launched just seven days later. And the corporate web behind it traces back to one of the most powerful men in the Middle East, a secret $500 million deal with the Trump family, and a CEO connected to a European corruption scandal.

Inside the FIFA Prediction Market Deal

FIFA’s April 2 press release announced ADI Predictstreet as the Official Prediction Market Partner of the FIFA World Cup 2026. The multi-year agreement makes ADI Predictstreet the exclusive prediction market for the tournament. That tournament features 48 teams playing 104 matches across 16 host cities in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

The platform will let fans forecast match outcomes, player performances, and tournament statistics. All of it runs on ADI Chain, a Layer 2 blockchain that went live just four months earlier.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino framed the partnership as innovation, saying FIFA is “committed to continually enhancing the fan experience.” ADI Predictstreet will also serve as the presenting partner for FIFA’s free-to-play bracket challenge. However, the announcement arrived amid a booming — and increasingly contentious — prediction market landscape. Established platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi are fighting legal battles for legitimacy while signing deals with every major sports league. FIFA chose none of them.

Follow the Money — Who Owns ADI Predictstreet

Tracing ADI Predictstreet’s ownership requires navigating a web of holding companies, foundations, and subsidiaries. They all lead back to one place: the Abu Dhabi royal family.

ADI Predictstreet is a subsidiary of Finstreet Limited, which is owned by International Holding Company (IHC). IHC is chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al Nahyan — the brother of UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and the country’s national security advisor. As a result, Sheikh Tahnoon oversees a business empire valued at more than $1.3 trillion. It spans AI companies, surveillance operations, and global investments.

The blockchain underneath ADI Predictstreet follows a similarly tangled path. ADI Chain is run by the ADI Foundation, an Abu Dhabi-based nonprofit founded by Sirius International Holding — itself a subsidiary of IHC. ADI Chain launched its mainnet in December 2025 and ranked around #215 by market cap with approximately $1 million in daily trading volume.

Notably, crypto analyst David Canellis flagged that ADI Chain’s token holdings are “heavily skewed towards insiders.” A small percentage is circulating while the company and investors hold the majority. This type of structure has historically been used to inflate token prices for insider profit.

Every entity in the chart above ultimately traces back to IHC and Sheikh Tahnoon. Another brother, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, owns Manchester City and New York City FC. Together, the Abu Dhabi royal family ranks among the most powerful forces in global football.

The Red Flags Behind This FIFA Prediction Market Partner

The personnel behind ADI Predictstreet carry histories that would typically disqualify a company from landing a partnership of this magnitude.

The Insider Trading Connection

Ajay Hans Raj Bhatia is listed as ADI Predictstreet’s principal council member. He was pictured alongside Infantino in the official press release. Yet on September 16, 2025, Bhatia settled insider trading charges with India’s Securities and Exchange Board (SEBI).

As the former managing director and CEO of QuantLase Lab LLC — an IHC subsidiary — Bhatia received unpublished price-sensitive information via emails on April 2-4, 2022. The information concerned Adani Green Energy’s preferential share issuance to IHC. He then traded on that information across multiple Adani companies. In settlement, he paid approximately $100,000, accepted a six-month trading ban, and denied wrongdoing. That ban expired just months before he appeared as the face of this FIFA prediction market partnership.

“This is all very fishy. If this were a more established operator or someone with a track record in the space, it wouldn’t raise the same questions.”
— Veteran sports partnerships executive

The Qatargate Link

Dimitrios Psarrakis was announced as CEO on April 8 — six days after the FIFA deal. He is a Greek economist who co-founded the Brussels Council for Technological Innovation and Global Development in September 2022 alongside his former boss, Eva Kaili. Three months later, Kaili was arrested as part of the Qatargate scandal — one of the European Parliament’s worst corruption cases. She faced charges of corruption, participation in a criminal group, and money laundering.

Furthermore, Psarrakis himself is under investigation by the EU prosecutor EPPO. The probe concerns suspected fraud involving payments to Kaili’s parliamentary assistants. He has not been charged and called the CEO role “possibly the coolest project of my life.” The pattern of insider trading concerns plaguing prediction markets appears to have followed the industry into its most high-profile partnership yet.

“The fact that FIFA signed an agreement for a product that does not exist, that is definitely odd.”
— Nikhilesh De, CoinDesk

A Company With Almost No Footprint

Beyond the personnel, ADI Predictstreet’s operational footprint raises its own questions. Its Instagram account had roughly 135 followers at the time of the FIFA announcement. Its X account was created in March 2026. Its only regulatory license, in Gibraltar — a British territory of 35,000 people called “Blockchain Rock” — was obtained “in record time” according to Gibraltar’s minister. The license arrived just days before the FIFA deal went public. It is the first prediction market ever licensed in Gibraltar.

The Gulf-Washington Connection

This FIFA prediction market deal doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It sits at the intersection of Gulf wealth, American politics, and FIFA’s own commercial ambitions.

In January 2025, Sheikh Tahnoon — through his firm Aryam Investment 1 — secretly invested $500 million for a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture. The Wall Street Journal revealed the deal a year later. Trump family entities received $187 million from just the first $250 million installment.

Months after that investment, the Trump administration greenlit the UAE’s purchase of 500,000 advanced American AI chips per year. Tahnoon had been pursuing this deal through his AI company G42. The Biden administration had previously blocked it over concerns about technology reaching China.

Meanwhile, FIFA President Infantino has his own ties to this network. He attended the Trump White House Crypto Summit in March 2025, where they discussed “FIFA Coin.” FIFA leases office space in Trump Tower. Infantino received a “USA” hat from Trump at what FIFA called a “Board of Peace” meeting and gave Trump the first-ever FIFA Peace Prize. Understanding how prediction markets actually work makes the stakes of this partnership clearer — it’s a real-money platform reaching billions of fans.

Why Not Polymarket or Kalshi?

What makes FIFA’s choice especially striking is that every other major sports organization chose established, regulated prediction market platforms. The NHL partnered with both Kalshi and Polymarket in October 2025. MLB signed a deal reportedly worth $300 million over three years with Polymarket in March 2026. MLS and UFC also partnered with Polymarket and Kalshi. Even LaLiga chose Polymarket as the first European football league to enter the prediction market space.

In contrast, FIFA — the largest sports organization of them all — bypassed every proven option. Instead, it chose a startup that didn’t have a working product, had no U.S. regulatory approval, and held a single license in a territory with a smaller population than most World Cup stadiums.

Kalshi declined to comment on whether it had discussions with FIFA. Polymarket did not respond to requests for comment. FIFA also declined to comment on why it chose ADI Predictstreet over established platforms.

The Bigger Picture for FIFA and Prediction Markets

FIFA’s deal with ADI Predictstreet fits a broader pattern of Infantino deepening the organization’s financial ties to Gulf states. Abu Dhabi has hosted the FIFA Club World Cup five times — three of them during Infantino’s tenure. More recently, Infantino met with the Crown Prince of Dubai and announced that the UAE will host a new annual FIFA awards event starting in 2026.

This relationship extends beyond hosting. It represents a strategic alignment between FIFA’s commercial ambitions and the Gulf’s near-limitless capital.

“[Infantino has found] a willing partner in Gulf leaders, and that has obviously played well with Infantino’s own desire to monetize almost every aspect of FIFA’s operations.”
— Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Rice University Middle East Fellow

At the same time, the prediction market industry itself is in the middle of an unprecedented regulatory battle. The CFTC has sued three states — Arizona, Connecticut, and Illinois — asserting exclusive federal jurisdiction over prediction markets. Arizona’s attorney general even pursued criminal charges against Kalshi executives. The outcome of these legal battles will determine whether prediction markets operate under federal oversight or face a patchwork of state regulations.

Against this backdrop, FIFA chose a partner that sidestepped the entire U.S. regulatory process by licensing in Gibraltar instead. Whether ADI Predictstreet can legally operate in the United States — where 11 of the 16 World Cup host cities are located — remains an open question. Neither FIFA nor ADI Predictstreet has addressed it publicly.

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Sources

• ADI Predictstreet Named Official Prediction Market Partner of the FIFA World Cup 2026 — FIFA Inside
• ADI Chain Announces ADI Predictstreet as the Official Prediction Market Partner of The FIFA World Cup 2026 — GlobeNewsWire
• QuantLase Lab MD Ajay Bhatia Settles Adani Green Energy Insider Trading Case — Moneylife (SEBI Settlement Order)
• Why Did FIFA Do a Deal With an Obscure Prediction Market? — Front Office Sports
• How a ‘Spy Sheikh’ Bought 49% of the Trump Family’s Flagship Crypto Company — Fortune
• CFTC Reaffirms Exclusive Jurisdiction over Prediction Markets — CFTC