Interviews

Protecting the Beautiful Game: FIFA, IP, and the Fight Against Ambush Marketing

Published: April 22, 2026

Lynn Carrillo, FIFA (USA)

The 2026 Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) Men’s World Cup is kicking off in June across Canada, Mexico, and the United States, featuring 48 teams from all around the world. It’s the most‑watched sporting event in the world, exceeding the Olympic Games and the Super Bowl in total global reach. Furthermore, this year’s World Intellectual Property Day—the annual celebration of intellectual property (IP) on April 26—features the theme “Sports and IP,” under the banner “Ready, Set, Innovate.”

Exploring the powerful intersection of sports and IP, the INTA Bulletin recently spoke to Lynn Carrillo, Director of Commercial Legal, at FIFA, soccer’s governing body, to discuss preparations for the tournament and why IP is central to her work. She is also a panelist at the session Ambush Marketing Without Borders: How Sports Rights Are Protected Worldwide at the Annual Meeting on Wednesday, May 6, from 10:30 to 11:30.

She speaks about the importance of IP to FIFA’s mission of developing soccer around the world and why ambush marketing—where unauthorized brands seek to associate themselves with major sporting events—continues to be a critical issue for sporting organizations everywhere.

Why is IP important to FIFA?
The theme of this year’s World Intellectual Property Day is “IP and Sports.” IP is important to every sporting organization and media company. It’s the foundation for the protection of the products that we put together. We bring football [soccer in the United States] to the world in many ways—through organizing tournaments and through broadcasting and disseminating those tournaments out to all parts of the world. Unlike other media companies, we want to ensure that our reach is as far as possible because our goal is the development of football around the world. From that perspective, it’s important to ensure that we can reach every person who wants to see it, whether in a more developed country or an underdeveloped country.

How do you educate businesses and the public about the threats and the risks of ambush marketing?
We contribute by creating alliances. We’re creating an alliance with Mercado Libre [a leading e-commerce platform in Latin America] to ensure that counterfeit goods are not part of its platform. They have an incredible program and are leaders in the space, and we’re proud to partner with them to ensure that the right products get into the hands of the most passionate football fans, which is their base.

CONMEBOL [soccer’s governing body in South America] has made incredible strides in its region, and it’s also a leader in that space. We create our own platforms, we work with law enforcement, and we continue to support worldwide efforts that bring people together to ensure that we’re all combating illegal activity.

Now there’s another side of ambush marketing. It’s corporations trying to take advantage of other corporations’ investments. I was in the media for a long time [previously serving as Vice President, Legal, at NBC]. This happens in every industry, but news is a good example. If you take someone’s scoop and use it for your own gain, the problem is that someone is going to do it to you as well. In ambush marketing, we also have to consider that when large corporations ambush other large corporations, all they’re doing is creating an environment in which no one’s rights are protected.

Are you seeing any particular trends in the ambush marketing field as the 2026 World Cup approaches?
I think it is one of the biggest existential threats to the sporting business.

There is less and less counterfeiting at stadium gates, as stadiums become bigger and their footprints become bigger, so that type of counterfeiting is becoming a little less of an issue.

It’s up to the Mercado Libres and the Amazons of the world, and other platforms. That’s where a lot of counterfeiting happens. But I think the biggest existential threat is ambush marketing—the lack of control and management of social media activity occurring without rights, without authorized online promotions. Online and social campaigns can associate themselves with events and go viral more quickly than we can manage. That is really a threat.

I think the biggest existential threat is ambush marketing—the lack of control and management of social media activity occurring without rights, without authorized online promotions.

Without wanting to give anyone any ideas, what kinds of ambush marketing are you looking for this summer?
I don’t think there are any in particular. To me, it’s about a balance between the host cities and the public.

Having grown up in the United States, especially having not grown up in a jurisdiction where the World Cup or soccer is as monumental as it is in other parts of the world, this is going to be a game changer for people to recognize and understand the value of a World Cup. Furthermore, the significance of hosting nations from around the world creates an environment where people really do come together for one thing. They put aside their differences. Their differences are set aside in favor of a round ball.

We come together as a united world with one goal: to support players on the field who are giving their all—shining examples of where hard work and dedication can get you. This is about the individuals who have dedicated their time and effort to being the best in the world. I think we can all come around and support the fact that we’re putting aside our differences and coming together to support them and our national teams, and our shared love of the game, absent whatever else is going on in the world.

It’s an opportunity to allow the United States to see that, and it gives opportunities to different cities to host people they’ve never hosted before. It gives people an opportunity to see the beauty of Mexico, Canada, and the United States and have different experiences in different parts of the world because that’s a big chunk of the world! It’s just a wonderful opportunity to reflect on World IP Day, on how we’re all coming together in three different countries in very different regions of the world to support and protect what, for us as IP lawyers, is ultimately an IP product that is being brought together from inception to its culmination and distribution. From a legal perspective, I think it’s a great opportunity to see what we do from an IP perspective to really come together in every aspect of this tournament.

How has FIFA’s ambush marketing strategy changed over the last four years?
You have a very different environment for ambush marketing depending on what jurisdiction you’re in, be it Qatar, the United States, Mexico, or Canada, where each region carries very big differences.

Our strategy changes depending on where the host nations are and how you establish clean zones and address counterfeiting; you must take a global approach. I now have a global brand protection ecosystem, which we created thanks to K&L Gates and its innovation, where during tournament time, we’re reporting and actioning any complaints on brand protection within two hours. We’re also tracking and monitoring every complaint that comes in from our sponsors. So, from that perspective, it’s a very different, more modern, technological approach than has ever been taken before as we face the most challenging environments that we’ve ever faced before. From that perspective, I think you need to come at it with a little bit of a change in mentality.

Having grown up in the United States, especially having not grown up in a jurisdiction where the World Cup or soccer is as monumental as it is in other parts of the world, this is going to be a game changer for people to recognize and understand the value of a World Cup.

You mentioned what the International Olympic Committee and the Olympics are doing. Do you work with other sporting organizations on ambush marketing, and what have you learned from each other?
I believe in cooperating in any industry. When I was at NBC we were part of the Media Rating Council. I believe INTA is one of those organizations where we always need to come together and share experiences. Collaboration in any industry is important.

So, yes, I do try to collaborate. I also feel a great sense of responsibility to the confederations and the member associations. I take it as my responsibility to support, assist, and innovate to ensure we’re putting forth best practices in the world.

If there’s one thing—or a couple of things—that people should take from the theme of IP and sports for World IP Day, what are they?
We need to understand the importance of IP in the sports world. We need to understand that sports and IP are not different worlds, how the ecosystem relies on IP protection, and why it’s not whether you’re an IP lawyer or a sports lawyer—or whether you’re A, B, or C. Understanding the different ecosystems is what helps us all be better at our jobs and helps to create a better environment for our organizations.

Why do you think someone should come to the session on ambush marketing and sports rights at the Annual Meeting?
There are others on the panel [including José Arochi, Partner Arochi & Lindner, Mexico] who will provide great insight, and it’s a timely topic given that there are so many major sporting events taking place in the world this year. There are so many things happening in the world, yet we can all come together for things like the Olympics or the World Cup. How we manage those is a wonderful opportunity for all of us to come together and discuss topics that impact and reach every part of the world.

2026 Annual Meeting

Ambush Marketing Without Borders: How Sports Rights Are Protected Worldwide

Wednesday, May 6, 2026, 10:30 am–11:30 am

Ambush marketing remains one of the most complex and high‑risk challenges in sports marketing, especially as major events move into new markets with evolving legal frameworks. This session brings together leading sports rights holders to examine how ambush activity is identified, managed, and enforced across jurisdictions, grounded in real‑world challenges. Panelists will discuss how organizations assess risk, where creative marketing meets legal limits, enforcement issues before and after major events, and what brands and agencies should and should not do around sports properties. Join us to get a practical understanding of ambush marketing risks and compliance in today’s global sports landscape.

Learn more and register for the 2026 Annual Meeting.

Although every effort has been made to verify the accuracy of this article, readers are urged to check independently on matters of specific concern or interest. The opinions expressed in this interview are those of the person being interviewed and do not purport to reflect the views of INTA or its members.