Before a single match kicked off at the 2026 World Cup, FIFA put more than 1,200 players through a one-second digital body scan, generating a 3D avatar of each one accurate to within millimeters. A digital twin is a data-built virtual replica of something real, in this case a millimeter-accurate model of a player’s body that stands in for him every time the system needs to know exactly where he was.

Built with Lenovo and Football Technology Centre AG , these digital twins track every player through all 104 matches, even when cameras lose sight of them in a crowded penalty box. They appear on stadium screens and global broadcasts to explain offside calls. They are quietly becoming the most consequential biometric dataset in sports.

And midway through the tournament, those avatars are deciding who goes home.

FIFA Digital Twins Are Deciding Matches Worth Billions

Per ESPN , in the Round of 32, Croatia's Josko Gvardiol scored a dramatic stoppage-time equalizer against Portugal. It was erased when sensors inside the Adidas Trionda match ball detected the slightest touch by Igor Matanovic in the buildup, shifting the offside line and leaving a teammate offside.

FIFA confirmed the call was correct. Croatia went home.

Fans struggled to reconcile what the technology detected with what they felt watching.

An offside call against Colombia's Davinson Sanchez showed why. His avatar appeared on screens worldwide with a green line cutting across his right toe, and the image became a meme for how narrow the margin was.

Precision itself became the debate.

The same systems have also delivered the first mistaken-identity correction in World Cup history, fixing a yellow card issued to the wrong player in the USA versus Paraguay match, per the NY Times . AI has changed the shape of controversy in football. The debate now centers on whether the technology was applied correctly, argued with millimeter-precise evidence in front of billions.

Lenovo AI Powers The Biggest FIFA World Cup Ever Played

The digital twins are one layer of the stack FIFA President Gianni Infantino and Lenovo CEO Yuanqing Yang unveiled at CES in January in Vegas per Computer Weekly. FIFA AI would run as infrastructure, embedded in officiating, broadcasting, team analysis, and operations across three host nations and 16 stadiums.

The tournament running on that infrastructure is the biggest ever played. On June 25, during Ecuador’s upset of Germany at MetLife Stadium, cumulative attendance passed the 1994 record of 3,587,538 spectators, and FIFA honored the record-breaking fan on the pitch alongside Sami Khedira. The same day set a single-day record of 426,834. The group stage closed with 4,644,549 fans across 72 matches at 99.7 percent occupancy, the highest in World Cup history, with supporters from 210 countries, and total attendance has since passed 5 million with two weeks still to play. The 1994 edition still holds the per-match average record, yet filling NFL-sized stadiums night after night at 99.7 percent is an achievement no previous host has matched per FIFA.

The money is keeping pace.

FIFA projects ticket and hospitality revenue of $3 to $4 billion, against roughly $949 million for Qatar 2022, with first-time dynamic pricing pushing final tickets to around $10,990 and prompting investigations by multiple US state attorneys general.

The AI reaches the dugouts too: all 48 squads received identical access to Football AI Pro, Lenovo's generative AI analytics assistant, so debutants like Cape Verde get the computational analysis that once belonged exclusively to Manchester City and Bayern Munich.

The Question FIFA Has Not Fully Answered

Data and privacy of data is a concern to many using AI today. FIFA has confirmed the operational half of the story. The scans exist to power semi-automated offside technology, and FIFA has said the 3D models are incorporated into the host broadcast so VAR decisions can be shown realistically to fans.

What FIFA has not cleanly answered is whether it holds a limited operational right to use each model and data for officiating and broadcast explanation, or a broader right to store, reuse, train on, license, or commercialize the avatar after the tournament.

FIFA's intellectual property guidelines state that FIFA holds all rights in relation to the 2026 World Cup, including intellectual property, media, marketing, and licensing rights. Owning the tournament is different from owning a player's body. The cleaner legal framing: FIFA may own the data system, the broadcast package, and the generated technical asset, while the player retains privacy, biometric, publicity, image, and data-protection rights in the body-accurate identity being represented.

In chatting with Greg Kahn, CEO of GK Digital Ventures, he told me “Sitting in these stadiums, I’m watching the most valuable dataset in sports get created in real time. Every match produces intelligence - not just about the world’s best athletes, but about the future of the game. The question of who owns that data may become one of the defining business issues in sports.”

Deletion illustrates the tension. FIFA's privacy policy gives individuals rights to delete data, restrict processing, object to use, and withdraw consent, and says FIFA will delete data unless there is a legal reason to keep it.

Under GDPR, biometric data tied to physiological characteristics is protected personal data with a right to erasure in certain circumstances. A player could plausibly demand deletion of his scan for any purpose beyond officiating, integrity, and the original broadcast use. FIFA could respond that it must retain data for match records, dispute resolution, and legal obligations. That is the fight.

Licensing is where the tiers get sharp.

Broadcast use is confirmed. Betting sits in a gray zone: FIFA named Stats Perform as its official betting data distributor, covering player statistics, live scores, match trackers, and streams for licensed sportsbooks, and nothing in that announcement clearly says body-accurate avatars are included. A video game looks closer to commercial likeness use than officiating infrastructure, and US right-of-publicity cases have treated realistic athlete avatars in games as legally sensitive.

An AI simulation the player never consented to is the biggest red flag of all. The FIFPRO player data charter, developed with FIFA, says players should hold rights to be informed, access, revoke, restrict, port, rectify, and erase their data, and that commercial use of player data should involve player participation.

The 2026 World Cup is the template for the Olympics and professional leagues worldwide, so the data practices set this summer will scale with it. When FIFA’s final whistle sounds on July 19, the match ends and I think the debate begins on privacy of data of FIFA player’s digital twin.