This year’s FIFA Club World Cup™ was the biggest global club football tournament ever, bringing together 32 of the world’s top club teams. Played under a new format like the FIFA World Cup™ and FIFA Women’s World Cup™, the month-long tournament was a global celebration of club football, with England’s Chelsea FC lifting the trophy.
While fans were watching the beautiful game, Lenovo helped FIFA keep the ball rolling off the pitch as Official Technology Partner of the tournament.
Team spirit
This year’s Club World Cup marked another milestone for FIFA, as together with its partners, world football’s governing body delivered a successful new format of competition.
Lenovo and Motorola were selected as Official FIFA Club World Cup 2025™ Partners to provide hardware, services, and smart solutions to FIFA.
“We’re honored to help power this historic tournament and explore what’s next—bringing new innovations that enhance the fan experience and support FIFA’s priorities for the future of football,” says Art Hu, SVP, Global CIO and SSG Chief Delivery & Technology Officer at Lenovo.
FIFA’s initial requests reflected both operational necessities and experiential ambitions, including end-to-end device lifecycle management, tournament event technology and venue management, digital VIP experiences, eGaming equipment, infrastructure for broadcast services, and AI-powered analytical tools.
Fast pace
In just 1.5 months, Lenovo delivered a complete hardware ecosystem, including laptops, smartphones, tablets, and audio/visual equipment. More than 150 Lenovo personnel were mobilized to deploy 7,500 assets at 12 stadiums across the United States, at the tournament’s technical command center in Miami, and at its international broadcast center in New York New Jersey.
Jose Ignacio Fresco, FIFA’s Director of Technology, comments: “Lenovo’s devices are renowned for quality and reliability, and their rapid response times ensured that all technical needs were met without delay.”
Facing tight tournament timelines, Lenovo had only 2.5 days to prepare each stadium. All equipment was pre-staged by Lenovo Customer Fulfilment Services and laptops pre-configured for immediate deployment—enabling users to hit the ground running with zero downtime.
Myles Spittle, FIFA Digital Workplace Solutions (DWS) Delivery Program Lead at Lenovo, notes: “We were one team. FIFA are true partners, and everyone worked to the same goal of making the tournament a huge success.”
“Lenovo has been exceptionally supportive in helping FIFA overcome key challenges,” confirms Jose Ignacio Fresco. “It all starts with people, and Lenovo’s management and staff consistently bring a high level of professionalism, acting not only within the scope of their responsibilities but also as a true partner and extension of the FIFA Technology team.”
Match ready
Beyond supplying hardware, Lenovo had over 150 Digital Workplace Solutions Delivery Specialists embedded across tournament venues, working alongside FIFA Technology teams to keep every site running smoothly.
These teams handled the full setup and decommissioning of end-user technology – from personal devices and printers to TVs and audiovisual systems – across competition and non-competition tournament venues. They also delivered hands-on support for staff, media, and VIPs to ensure every match, press conference, and event ran flawlessly.
Behind the scenes, ServiceNow integration between Lenovo and FIFA streamlined order, asset, and incident management, ensuring every issue was tracked and resolved quickly.
Working under intense time pressures, sometimes with as little as 48 hours to prepare a venue, Lenovo’s experts kept operations seamless – a vital contribution to the tournament’s overall success.
Art Hu comments: “The FIFA Club World Cup 2025 served as a showcase of Lenovo’s portfolio breadth, integrating smartphones, professional monitors, PCs, tablets, and high-performance servers, end-user devices managed via Lenovo Device as a Service, specialized eGaming rigs, and on-site technical services. This holistic technology footprint ensured that every operational, analytical, and experiential requirement was met.”
Consistently agile support ensured that all technology services were delivered without major incidents—an outstanding operational success. And all the more impressive when you consider the 32-team tournament was spread across multiple time zones and broadcast live to billions of people around the world.
Jose Ignacio Fresco notes: “Having an Official Technology Partner in Lenovo meant that we could mobilize quickly, standardize our fleet, and focus on the football experience for clubs, broadcasters, officials, and fans, rather than stitching together multiple vendors. Their event-proven delivery model—from Digital Workplace Deployment Services to managed lifecycle—gave us the flexibility to scale up operations in weeks, not months.”
For the fans
As well as supporting tournament operations, Lenovo technology was used to enhance fan experiences.
Beyond hardware, Lenovo introduced several innovative solutions, such as the Digital Seatbelt. With more than a hundred VVIPs attending each game and a dynamic guest list, FIFA’s challenge was to provide digital name tags that could be personalized quickly and easily on match day.
Lenovo Research developed a custom mount mechanism that enables Lenovo Tab K11 tablets to rotate, extend, and adapt to different seat configurations. As well as allowing FIFA’s guest services team to update VIP seat assignments in real time and quickly guide fans to their seat, the Digital Seatbelt delivers bespoke and exclusive content for a fully viewing immersive experience. For example, VIPs could enjoy live feeds from multiple camera angles, live replays, and AI-powered analytics.
“The story behind Digital Seatbelt is a story of collaboration, not a story of technology,” says Daryl Cromer, VP of Global Innovation & Research and Chief Product Security Officer at Lenovo. “Powering the devices efficiently and safely was a huge challenge. We built a bespoke charge box to hold the devices, charge them, and ship them where they need to be at short notice.”
Successfully tested in Miami and New York New Jersey at FIFA Club World Cup 2025™, this innovative Digital Seatbelt technology could one day come to a stadium near you.
“Lenovo leaned in as a co-creator: we were able to pilot and iterate innovations such as the Digital Seatbelt and other solutions with real tournament constraints in mind,” says Jose Ignacio Fresco. “That blend of global expertise, agility, and partnership significantly reduced operational risk and helped us deliver a stable, secure technology backbone from day one while increasing innovation to stay ahead of the game.”
Warming up
Powered by Lenovo technology, FIFA Club World Cup 2025™ has ushered in a new era in global club football. The tournament also marked the start of an exciting partnership, with Lenovo named Official Global Technology Partner for the FIFA World Cup 26™, the game-changing 48-team edition to be hosted in Canada, Mexico and the United States, and FIFA Women’s World Cup 2027™, which will be contested in Brazil.
“It was a pivotal milestone—the first Club World Cup under FIFA’s sole operational control—and a proving ground for our partnership,” says Art Hu. “Seeing Lenovo’s technologies powering everything from VAR accuracy to AI analytics, while also delivering VIP fan experiences, reaffirmed the strategic value of our collaboration. More importantly, it was a chance to cement trust and operational synergy with FIFA under real tournament pressures.”
Looking ahead, the collaboration will increasingly focus on AI-driven solutions and intelligent applications that enhance decision-making, fan engagement, and operational efficiency. Lenovo and FIFA’s commitment to innovation is already evident in pioneering new technologies, and future developments promise even deeper integration of smart features across FIFA’s digital ecosystem.
Jose Ignacio Fresco concludes: “Together, Lenovo and FIFA are shaping a tech-forward future in football and sports where devices, AI, and innovation amplify aspects on and off the pitch.”
To learn more about Lenovo’s partnership with FIFA, click here.
