It was revealed that during the 2026 FIFA World Cup, fans were shown a "constant bombardment" of advertisements promoting unhealthy food and drinks. Researchers from the Universities of Bristol and Oxford developed an artificial intelligence tool to analyze the advertisements visible to television viewers throughout the tournament's 104 matches. According to the investigations, logos and products of unhealthy food and beverage brands were displayed a total of 65,722 times on billboards around the stadiums and on the fields. The total visibility time of these advertisements was calculated as 28.1 hours, which covers more than 16% of the total time during which the matches were played.

The ads were shown on the international broadcast feed during the matches, meaning that all viewers broadcasting the matches in every country were exposed to these ads. Researchers estimated that an average of 576 unhealthy food and drink ads were visible during each game. Coca-Cola had the highest number with 21,893 impressions, followed by McDonald's with 13,915, Powerade with 12,777 and Lay's with 12,087. All four brands are among the official sponsors of FIFA.

Responding to the research results, FIFA stated that a large part of their income is invested back into football, and that they also support health and welfare projects. “FIFA works with a broad portfolio of global partners and are subject to governance and compliance frameworks,” a FIFA official said. FIFA's social impact campaigns aim to deliver messages of unity, inclusion, health and friendship to a large audience throughout the World Cup.

BBC Sport contacted PepsiCo, which owns Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Lay's, but did not receive a response. The research also analyzed other "potentially harmful" forms of advertising and found that promoting unhealthy food and drink was much more common. Unhealthy food and beverage logos achieved nearly seven times more visibility than alcohol and prediction markets brands, ten times more visibility than gambling companies, and almost twenty-five times more visibility than cryptocurrencies.

"Continuously associating unhealthy food and drink brands with football, excitement and national identity can make these brands familiar and normalize their consumption," the researchers said, noting that such advertisements shown at an international event fall outside the law.The UK government has introduced legislation to ban unhealthy food adverts on television before 9pm from October 2025. However, advertisements shown during matches are outside the scope of these laws. This causes unhealthy food ads to reach viewers even during hours when they should be banned.