FIFA World Cup 26, now underway across Mexico, Canada and the United States, will be the largest tournament in FIFA history, with 48 teams and an expected global audience of more than 5 billion. The tournament is watched worldwide and is one of the most complex undertakings in global sport. Its complex operations span across multiple nations and require military precision, with flawless coordination and communication between thousands of entities. This can only be enabled through innovative technology provided by FIFA technology partners. Here’s a look at what they offer and how their technology will help deliver a smooth workflow for the mega tournament this summer.
Salesforce Powers Coordination
Salesforce is an Official Tournament Supporter of the FIFA World Cup 2026™ in North America and Europe and the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2027 in North America and the host country Brazil. Salesforce technology will play a central role in how the tournament operates, engages fans, and coordinates with host cities.
Agentforce 360, a complete portfolio of Salesforce AI solutions that power the Agentic Enterprise — built on Slack, the work operating system where AI is multiplayer, will power the workflow between FIFA officials, teams and fans during the tournament.
The future of global events depends on intelligent, connected operations – a true Agentic Enterprise model. Done by bringing together AI agents, connected apps, trusted data, and people in Slack — the multiplayer operating system for AI — to reimagine what’s possible not just for the tournaments, but for the millions of fans, partners, and host communities who experience them.
Meta Drives Conversations
Meta is partnering with creators, athletes, and teams to highlight the conversation and culture around every match — from pre-game hype to post-game debate. It is also working with broadcasters, national teams, commentators, creators, and players to bring unique points of view on the tournament across its family of apps. Key moments, behind-the-scenes content, pre-game preparations, post-game analyses, celebrations, and commiserations will live on Meta apps designed for sharing and discussing with your friends, family, and fellow fans.
Threads
Threads is built for real-time conversation around the things people care about. When something wild happens on the field, fans know they can go to Threads for hot takes, banter, and real-time reactions. This summer, Meta is building on that experience with new features and a dedicated community designed for the way fans actually watch the tournament.
- Live Chats: Pull up to real-time conversations hosted by football commentators, athletes, and creators before, during, and after matches. React, reply, and talk straight to the hosts as it all unfolds.
- Sergio Aguero, the Argentina football legend and Ian Wright, the former England striker and current TV and radio pundit, will each host three Live Chats over the course of the tournament. Follow both on Threads to get notified when their Live Chats begin.
- Check for an updated schedule and more hosts announced on @threads throughout the tournament.
- Football Community: A special community for this summer’s tournament on Threads is the one place for it all: match-day conversation, player content, and post-game debate.
- Live Scores: Gives real-time match scores with national team branding, appearing inline as you post and in Live Chats so you can follow along while you chat.
- Team Flair: You can now choose a flag badge to appear next to your name and profile picture, so you can rep your country all tournament.
- Stickers: Introducing packs that show up in the composer the second you start posting about a match. Say it with more than words.
- Custom Emoji: You’ll now have football and trophy reactions for tournament posts.
- Media Highlights: Aggregating top content from broadcasters for you to read and react to.
- Never Miss a Moment: Spotlighting important conversations in Search, and adding Game Reminders that ping you for kickoffs and the moments you can’t miss.
Meta is making Instagram the go-to place for all things tournament-related.
- Enhanced Search: Its introducing a brand new, enhanced search experience, so when you search for the tournament or tap the tournament button on football videos globally, you’ll land on a dedicated destination that surfaces curated, real-time content from across Instagram. You’ll see top Reels, Stories, and featured accounts from official rights-holding broadcasters and national teams, alongside the best fan content.
- AI-Powered Voice Effects: To make connecting with friends over the matches more fun, Meta is globally rolling out a new ‘Goal!’ voice effect powered by AI in Instagram DMs. Send one to unlock a surprise animation.
Facebook is going full football mode with a range of new features that bring match-day energy to every interaction.
- Football Mode: Double-tap the Facebook logo at the top of Feed to activate football mode across the app and celebrate the tournament with themed reactions and other surprises. Plus, gain access to a special football game and custom app icon by long-pressing on the logo.
- Wear It: Sport your favorite national team’s jersey with the new Wear It feature, which lets fans use AI to virtually try on jerseys and show their support by sharing the image as a profile picture, story, or post. To get started open Stories, select a photo, tap AI Edit, and choose Wear It. Then pick your team’s jersey and share!
- Express Yourself: Find exclusive tournament-themed stickers, football-inspired design edits, and brand new expressive tools throughout Facebook to fuel your fandom.
Whether you’re celebrating a late-in-the-game goal or commiserating over a heartbreaking loss, Facebook gives fans new ways to wear their pride and share the moment.
Messenger
- Live Updates: This new feature brings real-time match highlights directly into your Messenger group chat. When Live Updates is activated, your thread instantly goes from delayed reactions to real-time celebrations — no refreshing, no spoilers, just you and your friends reacting together as goals, red cards, and key match moments appear in your chat while the action unfolds on the pitch. To turn Live Updates on, just tap the plus sign in the bottom left navigation bar of your group chat and pick a game to get updates about.
- Chat Theme: Add an extra kick of football to your group chat by activating a limited-edition chat theme. Just long-press on the background of any group chat to change your background to a football pitch.
- Stickers: When words aren’t enough to capture your fandom, express yourself with our exclusive tournament-themed animated stickers.
The only thing that matches the energy on the pitch is your group chat. WhatsApp has rolled out features to make following the tournament with the people you care about even more fun.
- Trionda Upgrade: We partnered with Adidas to bring the official match ball for this summer’s tournament to WhatsApp. Now through the finals, the football emoji has been upgraded to the Trionda ball. Send it as a message or drop it as a reaction.
- Calling Effects: We’ve also introduced new football calling effects, so you can bring the fun and fandom to your next group video call — filters you can add onto your face or background while you’re on a live video call.
- Football Sticker Packs: And for when you need just the right sticker to express how you feel after that missed penalty or questionable red card, we’ve rolled out a football-themed sticker pack to better express how you’re really feeling about a game.
- A Dedicated Football Directory: During the tournament, you can expect match-day countdowns, behind-the-scenes moments, and real-time highlights from channels across WhatsApp. We’ve created a dedicated football directory to bring together your favorite teams, latest scores, and updates all in one place for easy access.
- Say it With a Status: Meya is also rolling out the ability for Channels to post to Status, just in time for the tournament. You’ll see statuses from channels you follow alongside other statuses, and can also view a channel’s status when you visit a Channel. You can hide any channel’s statuses so it no longer appears alongside your statuses, or unfollow the channel at any time.
Protecting Athletes and Fans Online
Football fans across the globe will use Meta apps to connect around the tournament. While most will be rooting for their favorite teams and players, unfortunately there may be bad actors who will try to lure people into scams or harass and abuse others — offline and online. Meta recently shared details about the steps they’re taking to combat scams and our approach to keeping fans and players safe from abuse, including new in-app reminders for people searching for tickets — and updating existing ones to help people stay safe on our apps.
About FIFA
FIFA exists to govern football and develop the game worldwide. Since 2016, the organisation has been evolving rapidly into a body that can serve the game more effectively in the benefit of the entire world. As a not-for-profit organisation, FIFA – which organises the FIFA World Cup, FIFA Women’s World Cup, and FIFA Club World Cup, among many other international competitions – reinvests its revenues into a wide range of football development programmes, providing funds, infrastructure and know-how to its member associations.
