FIFA and Lenovo Unveil ‘Football AI’ for 2026 World Cup, Bringing Avatars, Analytics and New Data Questions

LAS VEGAS — Giant digital footballers towered over the stage at the Sphere on the opening day of CES 2026 as FIFA President Gianni Infantino promised “the greatest show ever on planet Earth.” Beside him, Lenovo chairman and CEO Yuanqing Yang called the 2026 men’s World Cup “the most technologically advanced in history.”

Behind the marketing language, the joint announcement marked a significant shift: for the first time, a World Cup will lean on a suite of artificial intelligence systems to shape how teams prepare, how referees make decisions and how billions of fans see the game.

On Jan. 7, FIFA and Lenovo unveiled “Football AI,” a package of technologies that includes a generative AI analysis platform for all 48 participating teams, full‑body 3D avatars of every player to feed into offside and video review decisions, and AI‑stabilized referee body‑camera footage for broadcast.

The systems are pitched as tools to enhance fairness, transparency and fan engagement at the 2026 tournament in the United States, Canada and Mexico. They also bring new questions about biometric data, commercial influence and who is ultimately responsible when algorithms help decide the world’s most watched sporting event.

Infantino said Football AI Pro, the analytics component, would “democratize access to data” by giving every national team the same core set of high‑end tools, regardless of budget.

“Seven million people will attend the 104 matches – 104 Super Bowls – and six billion people will watch it from home,” he said in Las Vegas. “We want to offer them the most complete, fair and transparent experience ever.”

An AI “knowledge assistant” for every team

At the center of the project is Football AI Pro, described by FIFA as a generative AI “knowledge assistant” built specifically for the sport. The platform is trained on what FIFA says are hundreds of millions of data points from thousands of matches in its competitions, structured through an internal “Football Language” that standardizes how tactical and technical events are logged.

Lenovo says the underlying dataset runs to petabytes and more than 2,000 metrics, processed through the company’s AI Factory infrastructure. Teams will access the system through a multilingual interface that can return written reports, video snippets, statistical graphics and 3D visualizations.

Coaches and analysts will be able to ask questions such as how often an opponent creates chances down one flank, or how a different formation might match up against a specific defense. The system can also generate individual performance breakdowns for players.

FIFA has emphasized that Football AI Pro will be available to all 48 teams on equal terms and can only be used before and after matches, not during live play. The restriction is intended to prevent real‑time coaching via AI, a step some national associations have resisted in other competitions.

“At the highest level of football, access to sophisticated analysis often depends on the financial and technical resources at a team’s disposal,” Infantino said. “This tool is designed to address this imbalance.”

The degree to which it does so may depend on how federations use it. Larger football associations in Europe and South America already employ extensive analytics staffs and proprietary models. Smaller or debutant nations with fewer analysts could gain most in relative terms from a shared system, but may also struggle to interpret complex outputs without additional expertise.

FIFA and Lenovo have not yet released technical documentation on how Football AI Pro’s models are tested for bias, robustness or explainability. Lenovo has said broadly that it is committed to “responsible AI,” noting its participation in the European Commission’s voluntary AI Pact, and has promised “strong privacy safeguards.” Details of how long data will be kept and whether the models will be repurposed after the tournament have not been published.

Turning players into 3D avatars

The most visually striking element will be on the pitch, or rather just off it. Before the World Cup, every player will undergo a rapid 3D scan, which FIFA says takes about one second and creates a detailed avatar that replicates the individual’s exact physical dimensions.

These digital doubles will be integrated into an upgraded form of the semi‑automated offside technology (SAOT) first used at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. That system combined a network of stadium cameras tracking 29 data points per player up to 50 times per second with a sensor in the ball transmitting data 500 times per second. For Qatar, graphics were based on schematic skeletal models rather than each player’s true physique.

For 2026, the 3D avatars are intended to allow more precise tracking of body parts that matter for offside and fouls, even during rapid or partially obscured movements. VAR officials will see the data as part of their decision‑making process, and fans will view new kinds of 3D animations on television and in stadiums that show the positions of players’ bodies more realistically than the rigid lines and generic figures used until now.

“No two footballers are the same,” Lenovo chief information officer Art Hu said. “Therefore, each player’s exact dimensions will be taken into account.”

Infantino called the avatars “a big advancement in semi‑automated offside technology,” saying they would provide “great images, faster decisions and a clear understanding by everyone.”

The system was trialed at the FIFA Intercontinental Cup in Qatar late last year, where players from Brazilian club Flamengo and Egypt’s Pyramids FC were scanned and their avatars used as part of the officiating pipeline. FIFA said the test “demonstrated its capability and readiness” for 2026.

The scans effectively create biometric templates of every participating player. Under data protection regimes such as the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, biometric data used for identification is treated as sensitive personal information, subject to strict rules on consent, storage and processing.

FIFA has said the data used for Football AI is “FIFA‑owned and FIFA‑organised,” but has not yet specified how long the 3D scans will be retained, whether they will be stored in Europe or elsewhere, or if they will be licensed for other uses such as commercial products or future training of AI models.

That ambiguity comes after a series of disputes over image rights in football. In 2020, Zlatan Ibrahimović and other players publicly questioned how their names and likenesses were being used in the long‑running FIFA video game series, arguing that they had not personally agreed to some uses. Those arguments involved the global players’ union FIFPRO and a chain of licensing agreements, and were ultimately resolved, but underscored how sensitive digital likeness can be.

FIFPRO and national player unions have not yet issued public statements specifically addressing the World Cup avatar program. Broader tensions between FIFA and player groups over match calendars and welfare, however, suggest data rights could become a point of negotiation before 2026.

Referees, wired for broadcast

Another visible change will be the return of referee body cameras, which FIFA piloted at the expanded Club World Cup in 2025. For the World Cup, the Referee View system will add Lenovo’s AI‑based video stabilization to smooth out the often jerky footage produced by officials running at full speed.

The cameras are expected to provide additional broadcast angles, including first‑person views of controversial incidents such as penalty‑area challenges and dissent, and may be used in some review situations.

FIFA Secretary General Mattias Grafström said the technology could “support match officials in critical moments” and offer fans “a more immersive view of the game,” while enhancing “transparency, understanding and engagement.”

Lenovo is sponsoring the use of Referee View as a branded broadcast asset, meaning its logo will appear on graphics associated with the footage. The company has not disclosed financial terms.

Referee organizations in other sports have expressed concern in the past about body‑camera programs increasing public scrutiny of officials and fueling abuse when clips circulate out of context on social media. FIFA and Lenovo have not yet published guidelines on when Referee View footage will be used in disciplinary proceedings, or how and where it can be repurposed for marketing.

A broader AI control room

The three headline systems sit on top of a wider AI‑enabled operations stack that FIFA says will underpin the tournament.

Lenovo will help run an “intelligent command center” using real‑time data to monitor stadium operations, transport flows and security. Digital twins — virtual replicas — of venues and surrounding districts will be used for simulations ranging from routine crowd management to emergency evacuations.

For fans, an AI‑powered wayfinding layer is planned to connect host cities, fan zones, landmarks and stadiums, guiding visitors through the first World Cup spread across three countries and 16 host cities.

These systems are intended to improve safety and efficiency but also concentrate operational data in centralized platforms. Cybersecurity specialists have warned in recent years that digital twins and AI control rooms for large events could be attractive targets for hackers seeking disruption.

Lenovo, which has also announced an “AI Cloud Gigafactory” project with Nvidia and a range of AI‑enabled consumer devices, is using the World Cup as a showcase to demonstrate its hybrid cloud and edge‑computing capabilities in a global, time‑critical setting.

Unanswered questions before kickoff

As of early January, most information about Football AI has come from FIFA and Lenovo themselves and from technology‑focused media coverage. National team coaches, players, referee unions and major fan organizations have not yet voiced strong public support or opposition, in part because many implementation details are still being finalized.

The systems will arrive at a moment when VAR and semi‑automated offside technology remain contentious among fans in top domestic leagues, including the Premier League, Serie A and La Liga. Critics have argued that extremely tight offside calls, sometimes measured in millimeters, undermine the spirit of attacking play and that delays and opaque communication from officials have damaged trust.

FIFA and Lenovo say richer visualizations and clearer, faster decisions at the World Cup will improve understanding and confidence. Whether supporters accept goals or disallowed goals based on 3D avatar shoulders and toes more readily than on previous line graphics remains uncertain.

Legal scholars and data protection authorities are likely to scrutinize how FIFA and Lenovo define their roles under privacy law, particularly for players based in the European Union and United Kingdom whose biometric data may be processed on infrastructure in North America. The forthcoming EU Artificial Intelligence Act, expected to classify biometric‑based systems in sensitive contexts as “high‑risk,” could also shape expectations for transparency and auditability.

Infantino characterized the partnership in Las Vegas as an “historic agreement” that would showcase both football and technology on an unprecedented scale. Yang said Lenovo’s “complete IT solutions” would help deliver “a smarter, more efficient and more exciting tournament.”

When the World Cup kicks off on June 11, 2026, in Mexico City, the impact of those systems will extend beyond stadium scoreboards. The tournament is likely to become a reference point for how far elite sport is willing to embed AI into competition and how regulators, players and fans respond when data and algorithms sit closer than ever to the heart of the game.