Betting on code: the algorithms powering FIFA

The 2026 FIFA World Cup is shaping up to be one of the most data-intensive sporting events ever staged, with AI embedded across team preparation, officiating, operations, media, and player protection. Rather than sitting at the edges of the tournament as a novelty, these systems are being positioned as part of the event’s operating infrastructure.

This makes the tournament a useful lens for a broader question facing sports organizations and large enterprises alike: what happens when AI begins to influence not just analysis, but live decisions, safety workflows, and public trust?

FIFA’s public answer is that AI can improve access to data, support officials, strengthen operations, and reduce harm to participants. However, the harder question is whether those benefits can scale without introducing new concerns around transparency, surveillance, and uneven competitive advantage.

FIFA’s core AI platform

Football AI Pro for teams

A core piece of FIFA’s new AI stack is Football AI Pro, a generative AI knowledge assistant co-developed with Lenovo for all 48 teams participating in the 2026 tournament. According to FIFA, the tool is built on its Football Language model and analyzes hundreds of millions of FIFA-owned and FIFA-organized football data points.

Football AI Pro generates insights in text, video, graphs, and 3D visualizations, with support for prompts in multiple languages. With it, FIFA hopes to reduce reliance on specialist analysts, simplify complex tools, and help coaching staff move more quickly from raw data to practical recommendations in pre- and post-match analysis.

“With Football AI Pro, we will democratize access to data by providing the most complete set of football analytics to all competing teams and soon to fans as well,” said FIFA President Gianni Infantino.

Even so, access alone will not eliminate differences in how effectively teams use the system. Federations with stronger analyst benches, clearer decision-making routines, and more experience integrating data into coaching are still likely to extract more value from it.

Infrastructure and data backbone

As the Official Technology Partner of the FIFA World Cup 2026, Lenovo is responsible for much of the hardware and software that FIFA’s new AI systems run on. For this tournament, Lenovo is rolling out a near-real-time, AI‑powered platform that helps manage broadcast operations, IPTV video delivery, digital content, and day‑to‑day tournament systems.

At the International Broadcast Centre in Dallas, Lenovo servers take in live video from stadiums across North America, process it, and redistribute it via IPTV channels to screens across World Cup venues. The same technology stack also supports FIFA’s Technology Command Center in Miami and the Tournament Operations Center, where staff monitor and manage key systems during the competition. 

This shared infrastructure gives tools like Football AI Pro, officiating support systems, and fan‑facing features access to the same live data and computing power, instead of each part of the tournament running on its own separate setup.

AI on the pitch

Connected ball and offside support

One of the clearest uses of AI in the field is in offside and other close decisions. For the 2026 World Cup, FIFA is combining several data sources in its semi‑automated offside system: player‑tracking cameras, a connected match ball, and updated software to align all of that data in real time.

The official TRIONDA ball includes a built‑in motion sensor that records its movement 500 times per second. That data is sent to the video assistant referee (VAR) system, which uses it to pinpoint the exact moment the ball was touched and how it moved immediately afterward. When that ball data is combined with camera tracking of players, officials get a precise timeline of when a pass was played and where each player was at that instant, which is crucial for tight offside calls and other borderline decisions.

Instead of relying on one replay angle, VAR officials see synchronized information from the ball, the players, and the broadcast feeds. That reduces guesswork and can help them reach decisions faster and with more confidence, while also cutting down the time fans spend waiting for a verdict.

3D player avatars and broadcast explanation

Alongside this data stack, FIFA is introducing AI‑enabled 3D avatars of every player to support semi‑automated offside decisions and make them easier to explain. Players are digitally scanned before the tournament so the system has detailed 3D models of their bodies, which helps track exact positions even when play is crowded or the camera angle is awkward.

FIFA plans to use the 3D avatars in stadium replays and global broadcasts to show a clear animation of each final decision, rather than a single frozen frame with a flat line. Its goal is to give players, coaches, and fans a more intuitive view of the geometry behind each call, and to make the reasoning easier to follow.

Referee cameras and decision context

FIFA and Lenovo are expanding Referee View, which uses AI to stabilize footage from the referee’s body‑worn camera in real time, reducing blur and shake so viewers can see a clearer first‑person view from the referee’s position.

That perspective can help show what the referee actually saw, how quickly key incidents developed, and how players were positioned around the ball. It also provides useful material for referee training and performance review after matches. In all of these cases, AI is being used not to replace human judgment, but to give officials and fans better context around the biggest decisions on the pitch.

Fan experience and media

Personalization and new viewing formats

According to FIFA and Lenovo, a key goal of their Football AI work is to make the World Cup more immersive and engaging for fans, whether they’re in the stadium or watching at home. Their AI‑enabled 3D avatars, connected‑ball data, stabilized Referee View footage, and low‑latency streaming all feed into that effort, turning systems built for analysis and officiating into clearer replays, more camera options, and fresher ways to follow key moments.

This reflects a broader change in how sports technology is packaged. Instead of reserving advanced data systems for teams and technical staff, organizers are turning parts of that same stack into explanations, angles, and visual formats that make the game more legible to viewers. For fans, the benefit is a richer understanding of moments that previously felt opaque; for rights holders, it is a way to create differentiated coverage without changing the underlying match itself.

Governance and the future of tournament operations

Competitive balance and trust

FIFA’s public case for AI rests on a set of appealing promises: better access to analysis, more transparent officiating, improved engagement, and safer participation online. While these are meaningful goals, they don’t erase the need for scrutiny. Even when tools are made broadly available, their benefits are rarely distributed evenly, and systems that shape high-stakes decisions will always invite questions about oversight and accountability.

That is especially true in football, where legitimacy matters as much as technical performance. If AI contributes to a controversial offside ruling, a moderation decision, or a security process, stakeholders will want to know not just that the system worked as designed, but how that design was defined in the first place.

What this means for future tournaments

The 2026 World Cup offers an early look at what AI at event scale looks like in practice: not one standalone tool, but a connected system spanning team analysis, officiating, broadcast, operations, and participant protection. In that sense, FIFA’s approach is less about adding isolated features and more about building a shared digital layer that different parts of the tournament can use at once.

That model is likely to shape future tournaments well beyond football. The important questions won’t be whether organizers use AI or not, but how clearly they explain it, how responsibly they govern it, and how well they balance efficiency and insight against trust, privacy, and fairness.