In Short
Drone soccer was invented in South Korea in 2016 and is now recognized internationally by two separate bodies: the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), which sanctions the sport as class F9A, and FIDA, a Drone Soccer specific federation. In the United States, the U.S. Drone Soccer Association governs FAI sanctioned play; Drone Sports, Inc. is its preferred equipment and training partner; FIDA USA runs a separate, recreational focused branch of the sport with international competitions; and CrewConcept Drone Lab, a CTE-focused equipment company and local league, closed in 2026. All four are described below, in order.
Why this Page Needs to Exist
If you've followed drone soccer for any length of time, you've probably noticed something confusing: two international governing bodies, more than one U.S. organization associated with the sport, and a growing list of commercial suppliers, each with a different story about what Drone Soccer is and where it came from.
This page is our attempt at a clear, sourced history: where the sport came from, who created it, how the world's oldest air sports body came to recognize it, why a second international federation formed, and how the U.S. ecosystem, the U.S. Drone Soccer Association, Drone Sports, Inc., FIDA USA, and CrewConcept Drone Lab took shape around it.
Integrity is a core value at Drone Sports, and transparency comes with it. We'd rather give educators the clearest possible picture of this space than shy away from a complicated one, even when that complicates our own story.
The origin: Jeonju, South Korea, 2016
Drone soccer was invented in 2016 in Jeonju, South Korea, at the CAMTIC Advanced Mechatronics Technology Institute, a government funded research organization that develops applied engineering programs for Korean industry.
The concept is most often credited to Lee Beom-su, a former soldier and firefighter working as a researcher at CAMTIC. The sport was directly inspired by Quidditch, the fictional flying game from the Harry Potter novels, and by early observations of what happened when small caged drones collided in flight. Lee described an early match this way:
“A drone soccer game looks like a combat scene from the movie Star Wars.”
That framing explains why the sport works. Every drone flies inside a rigid spherical cage. The cage protects propellers from other aircraft, the arena netting, and human hands and, just as importantly, it lets aircraft collide repeatedly without either one falling apart. That single design decision turned drone flying from an individual precision activity into a team-contact sport.
The first public matches were played in Korea in 2017. By 2018, the sport had spread to schools and youth centers across the country, backed by CAMTIC's research and the Korean government's active promotion of drone technology as an economic priority.
International Recognition: Two Separate Paths
FAI Recognition, May 2019
The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) is the international governing body for air sports. Founded in 1905, it predates FIFA and is recognized by the International Olympic Committee as the world authority for aviation and space records. FAI writes the Sporting Code, the technical rulebook governing every sanctioned air sport competition in the world.
On May 1, 2019, FAI added Drone Soccer to its Sporting Code as a provisional class, designated F9A, the first time FAI had recognized a head-to-head team sport within its structure. Historically, air sports have been individual disciplines like aerobatics, gliding, or record-setting flight; drone soccer changed that.
F9A is divided into two classes by aircraft size:
F9A-A: 40cm aircraft, played in a 6×12-meter arena. The senior competitive class, suited to high-performance play and international events.
F9A-B: 20cm aircraft, played in a 3×6-meter arena. The class most common in schools, since it fits inside a standard classroom, gymnasium corner, or activity room.
Both classes share the same core rules: five players per side, three three-minute sets, one striker per team eligible to score by flying through a suspended goal ring, but arena size and equipment differ. The large majority of U.S. school programs run F9A-B, for practical reasons of space and cost.
F9A remains a provisional class as of this writing. Provisional status means the class is officially sanctioned and its records are recognized, but it remains under review for full permanent standing, a normal process for any young air sport.
FIDA Forms — 2022
In 2022, a second international organization emerged from South Korea: the Federation of International Drone Soccer Association (FIDA). FIDA operates independently of FAI and grew out of the same Korean commercial and manufacturing ecosystem that produced the sport itself, including CAMTIC and the Korean equipment manufacturer Timatec.
FIDA holds its own international competitions, most notably the FIDA World Cup, its inaugural event was held in South Korea in May 2023, with a dozen founding member nations. FIDA also operates a network of national affiliates, including FIDA USA in the United States.
One Sport, Two Governing Bodies
Two international federations, FAI on one side and FIDA on the other is the single largest source of confusion in drone soccer today. The honest explanation:
FAI is the older, broader air sports authority. It recognized drone soccer as a class within an existing family of aviation disciplines that includes drone racing, model aircraft, and remotely piloted aerobatics. FAI works through national aeroclubs, in the United States the sanctioning body is the Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA).
FIDA is a newer, Drone Soccer specific federation that grew directly out of the sport's Korean origins. It works through its own national representatives rather than existing aeroclubs, and prioritizes equipment standardization: every pilot uses the same drone in competition, as set by a single national sanctioning authority.
Both are legitimate. Both organize different competitions, under different rulebooks, with different member networks. A school program can align with either path, but the two don't cross over cleanly. A team competing in the FAI system won't typically play a team competing in the FIDA system without significant coordination.
In the U.S., FIDA offers equipment from a single South Korean manufacturer, built around the 40cm competition size, with smaller platforms treated as practice equipment toward that size. It arrives pre-built and isn't designed to be repaired, a real limitation for programs planning years of use, but a genuine strength for elementary students, since gameplay is slower and includes assistive technology that makes flying easier for younger pilots. FAI-aligned play is the larger U.S. network by a wide margin and continues to outpace FIDA, giving FAI programs the most opportunity to compete locally.
Worth Knowing: 40cm drone soccer is played in only a handful of U.S. programs today, with typical program investment ranging from $75,000–$250,000, very cost-prohibitive for most schools. Nearly all U.S. school programs run the smaller F9A-B class instead for both leagues.
World Championship Play
The first FAI-sanctioned World Drone Soccer Championship was held November 15–18, 2025, in Shanghai, China, with eighteen nations competing. The podium reflected the sport's Asian roots, with China and Korea taking most top places across both size classes.
Team USA, organized by the U.S. Drone Soccer Association and drawn primarily from high school programs that won the National Tournament, competed in Shanghai. The strongest U.S. finish was fourth place in the 40cm class, by SATO Academy of Long Beach, California, a program that has consistently ranked among the top in the country. That result put an American team on the same competition floor as the sport's founding nations within six years of drone soccer's arrival in U.S. schools. It was also the first time the 40cm class was included in FAI international play.
The Sport Arrives in the United States
Drone soccer arrived in the U.S. around 2021, with product designed in 2020 to the FAI ruleset. Early adoption concentrated in states with strong aviation and aerospace ties — Colorado, New York, Ohio, and California — and grew quickly through Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs, STEM clubs, and after-school aviation initiatives.
Three organizational milestones shaped what the U.S. ecosystem looks like today.
2022 — “U.S. Drone Soccer” founded. Originally an alternate business name under Drone Sports, Inc. At the time, the company was designated the Academy of Model Aeronautics' Special Interest Group for FAI F9A drone sports, giving the U.S. a direct line into the FAI structure through the AMA, the same channel that has represented American model aviation internationally for nearly a century.
February 23, 2022 — federal recognition. The FAA's Advanced Aviation Advisory Committee, through its Task Group #12 on integrating uncrewed aircraft systems into K-12 curricula, specifically recommended U.S. Drone Soccer as a tool for improving gender equity in STEM education. The sport's first explicit federal endorsement for its educational value.
2024 — the U.S. Drone Soccer Association separates. What began as a business name under Drone Sports, Inc. became its own organization, the U.S. Drone Soccer Association, which established itself as an independent 501(c)(3) to lead the community and competition structure nationally. The Association is a separate organization from Drone Sports, Inc., led by David Roberts and has since built out a national league structure, ranking system, and championship calendar aligned with FAI's international framework.
The U.S. league has grown quickly. Public sources track that growth: approximately 240 U.S. schools by late 2024 (per EdTech Magazine, November 2024), 300-plus schools and organizations serving 5,000-plus students across 38 states by early 2025 (per the New York State School Boards Association and U.S. Drone Soccer™ data), and continued month over month growth through the 2025–2026 season.
Recent FAI U.S. National Championships have moved to increasingly prominent venues: Virginia Tech (2024), the Griffiss/SkyDome complex in Rome, New York (2025), and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University's “Battle at the Beach” event in Daytona Beach (May 18–19, 2026).
Where Drone Sports Fits in
Drone Sports, Inc. is the commercial company that supplies the equipment, curriculum, and coaching support the FAI runs on in the United States. Founded in Colorado Springs, the company is the FAI-sanctioned U.S. equipment supplier for the F9A-B class, working closely with the U.S. Drone Soccer Association. Drone Sports is led by Eric Richard, an 18-year U.S. Air Force veteran with a background as a C-130 pilot and aircraft maintainer, and more than 12 years in the drone industry. The company designs and manufactures the Saker DS200 “Bantam” U19 drone, the standard F9A-B class aircraft used across most U.S. school programs, and supports more than 440 programs in 38 states with kits, curriculum, professional development, and technical support.
Drone Sports is an education technology company first. Drones arrive disassembled for students to build, program, and learn to fly, building troubleshooting, electrical engineering, and maintenance skills alongside flight skills, and are designed to be repaired and maintained at minimal cost. A program is able to stay viable over multiple years rather than requiring full replacement.
The distinction between Drone Sports, Inc. and the U.S. Drone Soccer Association is worth being precise about: the Association is the FAI-affiliated governing body for the sport in the United States; Drone Sports is its preferred equipment supplier, but not the only one. It's a similar relationship to the NBA and Spalding: one organization governs the sport, the other manufactures a ball used to play it.
The Other U.S. Organizations
FIDA USA
FIDA USA is the U.S. affiliate of the FIDA International Federation, headed by Tim Ingram and headquartered in Palm Springs, California. It focuses on recreational and family oriented Drone Soccer events, holds a partnership with the American Legion, and hosts events such as the Palm Springs Drone Festival (May 1–2, 2026), which drew more than 2,500 participants from 11 countries. Because FIDA USA follows the FIDA international system rather than FAI, its equipment specifications and competition rules follow the FIDA rulebook, which overlaps with FAI's F9A rules in many respects but isn't identical. The model here is standardized, pre-built equipment, testing pilot skill and team strategy rather than build-and-maintain style engineering skills.
CrewConcept Drone Lab
CrewConcept Drone Lab was a Colorado Springs-based education company founded in 2023 by Kyle Sanders, a retired U.S. Air Force officer, former U.S. Air Force Academy Instructor, and a Drone Sports, Inc. co-founder who left the company to start CrewConcept. CrewConcept partnered with the European drone manufacturer Orqa on the SOCR.Flight and SOCR.Ascend product lines, emphasizing “China-free, NDAA-compliant” hardware sourcing. The company hosted the Academic Drone Soccer World Cup at the SUN 'n FUN Aerospace Expo in Lakeland, Florida (April 17–18, 2026), and focused on Career and Technical Education pathways through its own Academic Drone Soccer League rather than FIDA or FAI affiliate structures. CrewConcept's equipment was compliant and allowed in the FAI ruleset.
CrewConcept Drone Lab closed in 2026, issuing refunds and cancelling outstanding orders.