"AI Double Works 24 Hours a Day": Which Footballer Ushered in the Era of Digital Replicas?

Appearing in ads worldwide even while training
Expanding into fan engagement and football coaching
Calls grow to protect players' image rights from unauthorized deepfakes

We are entering an era in which an AI double with a footballer's exact face and voice can appear in advertisements and make money without the player ever visiting a filming location. A new sports business is emerging: while the player competes on the field, another version created by AI works around the clock on a global stage.

On October 25 local time, the British newspaper The Guardian reported that Christian Volpato, a 22-year-old Australian national team player who plays for Italian Serie A club Sassuolo, recently signed a deal to clone his appearance and voice, among other attributes, with AI for commercial use. The other party to the deal is Callandor, a California-based U.S. company that manages AI sports rights. In mid-September, Volpato signed an agreement with Callandor, granting it an exclusive license to use his face and body image, voice, biometric data and match data in AI-generated content.

Callandor calls this a "Synthetic Twin." The technology allows AI to recreate a player's appearance and feature them in advertisements or video content without the actual player appearing. In a promotional video released by the company, several AI doubles of Volpato appear at the same time. As Volpato walks through the interior of a huge building, he splits into four doubles, each of whom heads to a different location. Some are shown posing in white suits against the backdrop of Australia's famous Twelve Apostles rock formations, while another appears on a giant screen wearing a football uniform. All of this was created using AI. The person in the video looks like the real Volpato, but he did not travel around the world for filming. He is a digital replica created with the player's approval. The player takes the field; his AI double shoots advertisements.

An "AI double" that removes the limits of time and space

The main reason this technology is attracting attention is that it can remove the constraints of time and space. Professional footballers have packed schedules filled with training, matches and travel for away games. They have to set aside time separately for ad shoots, and filming overseas also incurs considerable costs. With AI doubles, however, advertisements can be made in various countries regardless of the player's actual schedule. The same player can introduce a product in Korean in South Korea, in Japanese in Japan and in local languages across Europe.

Michael Fisk, co-founder of Callandor, told The Guardian that Volpato spends a great deal of time training and playing matches, and explained that using an AI double could help him secure advertising opportunities he would otherwise have to miss.

Christian Volpato, an Australian national team player who plays for Italian Serie A side Sassuolo. Volpato's Instagram.

He emphasized that, with the player's approval, a Synthetic Twin can be used in brand advertising 24 hours a day, all year round. Callandor is pursuing a business model in which it secures advertising deals using AI doubles and collects a commission from a portion of the resulting revenue. While it is difficult for players to meet or coach large numbers of fans in person, digital doubles can interact with many users at once.

Volpato is not the only one pursuing this approach. Callandor has also signed related agreements with Brazilian footballer Jorginho and U.S. sailor Chris Poole. They are working to register their faces, voices, biometric data and match data in the company's AI rights management system for use in authorized content. This trend shows that the commercial value of sports stars is expanding beyond their performance on the field and appearances in advertisements to include their digital identities.

League steps in after ads are made without players' knowledge... Deepfake disputes spread

The unauthorized creation of AI content featuring players is also becoming a real issue. This month, the Australian Football League (AFL) asked Sportsbet, its official betting partner, not to use AI images of players without permission. Sportsbet had posted videos on social media that superimposed players' faces onto scenes from movies or speeches by famous figures. Examples included AI videos showing Australian rules footballer Lachie Neale imitating a speech by U.S. rapper Snoop Dogg and Will Ashcroft delivering lines from an American TV drama.

However, some videos were deleted after it emerged that the players had not consented. The Australian Football League Players' Association said it could not allow the use of AI images without players' approval. Existing collective bargaining agreements include restrictions on the use of players' likenesses, but specific rules for AI-generated content have reportedly not been adequately established.

England national football team players Cole Palmer, Lucy Bronze, Kyle Walker and Kieran Trippier took part last September in the "My Name, My Face" campaign to protect people's names, faces and voices from AI deepfakes. mynamemyface.com

Similar developments are emerging in football. England national team players including Cole Palmer, Lucy Bronze, Kyle Walker and Kieran Trippier took part last September in the "My Name, My Face" campaign to protect people's names, faces and voices from AI deepfakes. Led by the British law firm Mills & Reeve, the campaign is calling for stronger legal protections for players' digital identities. The International Federation of Professional Footballers (FIFPRO) and the Professional Footballers' Association (PFA) have also supported the campaign. As AI technology advances, the risk is growing that players' faces and voices could be cloned without permission to promote specific products or fabricate statements they never made.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.