Oulala Fantasy Football is a web-based fantasy football (or fantasy soccer) game. The game consists of a typical, traditional fantasy football setup allowing the player to pick real life footballers to make up their fantasy football squad each week. Their fantasy team scores points based on how the players they've picked perform in their real life matches. The game can be played for free or for cash prizes in a poker-style entry fee format.
Oulala differs largely from other fantasy football games available. Most other games operate around one national league whereas Oulala is open to four major European leagues, the English Premier League, the Spanish La Liga, the French Ligue 1 and the Italian Serie A so the player can pick a team with a mix of the finest players Europe has to offer. Other games limit themselves to 5 or 10 points scoring criteria, usually goals, assists, clean sheets, yellow and red cards, penalty saves and sometimes man of the matches. Oulala’s system includes 70 different criteria dependent on a player’s position resulting in a total of 275 ways to gain or lose points, ranging from the usual goals and assists to the more detailed shots on target and successful tackles, amongst many others, making it as close to football reality as possible. This data is sourced directly from Opta Sports. The game also features in-play live management allowing real time substitutions to be made, a first in the world of fantasy football.
Other information
On February 26, 2014, the Maltese Minister for the Economy, Investment and Small Business, Dr Christian Cardona, officially inaugurated Oulala. This was reported on TVM, Malta's television station.
Oulala also provides a blog that shares information about the game itself but also exclusive football news stories on a regular basis, some of which have been picked up and published on a grander scale nationally.
On March 12, 2014, Oulala published a story about the top ten football terrace chants. The UK national press were quick to follow in covering Oulala's story themselves, they included the Evening Standard and the Daily Star, alongside many others.
On April 10, 2014, they also released an article about the most embarrassing pundit footballing gaffes. Again the UK press re-published the news story appearing in The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, the Daily Express as well as many others.
On June 29, 2014, Oulala featured in the business section of The Times of Malta. The newspaper reported that the game was succeeding in its launch of a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter.
In October 2014, London newspaper the Croydon Advertiser reported that Crystal Palace and Australia national team captain Mile Jedinak was ranked the fifth-best player in Europe and the best player in the Premier League by Oulala's diverse Opta sourced scoring matrix. This was quickly followed up by the national press in Australia also covering the story, featuring on Fox Sports (Australia), News.com.au, and Special Broadcasting Service in which the midfielder brushed aside the accolade after hearing the news through a friend.
On April 20, 2015, Oulala featured an article on José Mourinho's record in the Premier League over his two spells at Chelsea. The story was picked up by the UK media, appearing on a number of different websites including The Daily Star, and Caught Offside among others. This story was then followed up by a piece on April 23, detailing Mourinho's head-to-head record against Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger. Again the UK media reproduced the same story, appearing on Shoot Magazine and Sabotage Times alongside others.