ÖFB x zertmail.

Confidential communication is part of everyday life in football – whether it’s contract negotiations with players, the exchange of medical information, or coordination with international federations. The Austrian Football Association (ÖFB) was therefore initially looking for a solution to protect against spam, viruses, and phishing attacks.

During the evaluation, however, it quickly became clear: not only incoming, but also outgoing emails must be protected – especially when personal data or confidential documents are being transmitted.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires organizations under Article 32 to take technical and organizational measures to ensure a level of protection appropriate to the risk – particularly when transmitting sensitive content over open networks such as the internet. Sending such information unencrypted is problematic under data protection law – and remains everyday practice for many organizations.

With zertmail., the ÖFB now has a solution that covers both inbound and outbound security. In addition to classic protection against external threats, zertmail. provides end-to-end encryption and automatic digital signatures based on S/MIME certificates. This makes it possible for the first time to send especially sensitive content – such as player contracts, medical diagnoses, or travel documents – securely by email.

What particularly convinced the ÖFB was the easy integration into everyday workflows: the solution was seamlessly integrated into Microsoft Outlook, with the user interface remaining unchanged. Confidential messages can be encrypted with a single click, while certificates and signatures are managed automatically in the background.

Since its introduction, the association has benefited from significantly more efficient, secure, and traceable communication – whether internally, nationally, or in exchanges with international organizations such as UEFA or FIFA.