Fans create AI-generated team songs ahead of the World Cup | World Cup 2026 news

World Cup fans are using their creativity to create songs that support their teams ahead of next month’s match.

As fan-made football songs rack up millions of views on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, experts say viral music raises questions about music ownership, compensation and the valuation of human talent.

Recommended Articles

list of 4 itemsend of series

But many users are not interested, with some showing a preference for music created by AI over the official song that world football’s governing body FIFA ordered from singers Jelly Roll and Carin Leon.

Shakira’s much-anticipated World Cup song from Shakira was released last week, but the AI ​​music trend was still inspiring excitement on social media during the games taking place in cities in the United States, Canada and Mexico in June and July.

This seems to have started with a song dedicated to the French group, “Imbattables”, released in February by the artist Crystalo, who is listed on Spotify as the “chief AI music creator” from France. The song begins with a call-and-response calling out the names of Kylian Mbappe and other French players.

The Brazilian song was followed by a similar version of the name-calling and phonk song that creator Guilherme Maia, known as M4IA, said he created and combined various elements with the help of AI.

The music of Portugal, Argentina and Germany, as well as many others, soon spread on the platforms, and were highly praised by the fans.

But while the Brazilian version was very similar to the French version, later songs copied Maia’s style exactly. Everyone also used the phonk beat and wrote the names of the players before paying tribute to the team’s “king” – usually reserved for Cristiano Ronaldo in the Portuguese version or Lionel Messi in the Argentinian version.

“What I see happening now is about people following a trend or trying to recreate a feeling,” Maia told AFP, noting that artistic imitation has always existed in music.

While he was happy that AI was open to development, he acknowledged that the technology raises new questions about authorship and copyright.

“In music, there are clear rules. You can’t copy someone else’s work or use samples without permission, even if AI is involved.”

Maia emphasized that he created the song himself and used AI as an assistant to create other things, instead of asking a music production tool like Suno to quickly create a song.

But Jason Palamara, an assistant professor of music at Indiana University, said that with these examples, there is a lack of clarity in how artists are respected if their official work is used to teach them.

He said: “It had to come from somewhere.”

Inconsistencies that can be seen in AI-generated images can also appear in music produced by the technology.

For example, the World Cup anthem created by fans in Portugal was sung with a Brazilian accent, while the Colombian version read James Rodriguez’s first name with an English accent rather than a Spanish one.

AI-generated music can also be challenging, Palamara said.

“It’s one integrated thing, instead of something that has multiple tracks that go into it, where it has a lot of features.”

However, Morgan Hayduk, Co-CEO of music rights company Beatdapp, said that audiences enjoying World Cup music may not be looking for artistic talent.

“There seems to be a group of people who don’t care,” Hayduk said. “They love music, and they love the back story that it came from a great language and not a songwriter or a band.”

He said that despite concerns about the industry’s potential use of AI, fast-paced songs that can be sung by fans or featured in commercials are the clearest use cases for AI-generated music right now.

“Knowing what makes a release, like a World Cup game song, is a thorny Rubicon that the music industry has to cross now.”