When the 2026 World Cup was held, whether advertisers or players, they all focused on this occasion of traffic gathering to capture public’s attention for their brand or value. However, no one can predict that an unknown player from a small country in football would become an Internet celebrity of mass traffic before the tournament, due to an action by influencer. It led this post to explore the double-edged sword effect of influencer marketing, consider the function of influencer and whether the process is good or bad. Through two cases in sports field, we can learn how to regard influencer on marketing.

Who is Tim Payne？

Tim Payne, an unknown 32-year-old New Zealand player, but Valen Scarsini /“elscarso”, called their hundreds of thousands of followers on social media to support this player as a campaign (Snelson, 2026).

“I looked at all the teams that play the World Cup for the least-known player and, after analysing one by one, I found it.” —— Valen Scarsini /“elscarso”

In just a few days, Payne’s fans increased rapidly at a rate of nearly 1,000 per minute due to the social media promotion (Pathak, 2026), up to the current 5 million followers, then the main character Tim responded to the creator of this crazy moment, elscarso. After the World Cup, Tim utilised this influence to engage in cooperation for social benefits (United Nations Youth Office, 2026).

Fake Player, True Influencer

The case of Tim Payne sparked a positive online frenzy, while other case of Spreen / Deportivo Riestra caused a commercial chaos. In 2024, professional club Deportivo Riestra signed a professional contract with Spreen, an influencer without professional experience (Johnson, 2024). Because the energy drink he advertised is the sponsor of Riestra’s shirt (BBC Sport, 2024). In other words, this was a top-down marketing campaign caused criticism from fans, industry insiders and the media, was regarded as a disgrace and a lack of respect (Johnson, 2024), even caused controversy over cooperation with illegal online gambling platforms (Reuters, 2024). Finally, Deportivo Riestra apologised and acknowledged that this was a marketing campaign.

“una acción de marketing que generó muchas opiniones negativas” —— Deportivo Riestra (Página|12, 2024)

Fack player ？

Through these two cases involving influencer, we can learn about influencer marketing.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is a form of social media marketing that utilize celebrity on the Internet, namely influencer, to promote products through sponsorship (Boone, 2017). After 2019, multiple social media and platforms have doubled the scale of the influencer economy (McKinsey & Company, 2023). Ordinary people can accumulate followers and generate influence on the platform, and followers are also willing to trust these people with Interactivity and affinity. Therefore, this marketing strategy utilsed influencer to promote rather than traditional celebrity (Boone, 2017).

When we look back at these two cases, Spreen’s case is entirely based on the number of fan and influence he accumulated, made him regarded as the role for this campaign to promote product and attract more attention (beIN SPORTS, 2024). But the process and result is not satisfactory and even negative, it just attracts the public’s attention, but not identify the requirements of target market, resulting in controversies both in reputation and business.

While the case of Tim Payne, influencer was not sponsored, just utilised the social media influence to prompt the community and public to spontaneously achieve such result with high traffic and positive impact. Tim is no longer the “lleast known player in the World Cup”, it indicates that the influencer can still produce marketing effects without sponsorship under today’s social media. Although it is not for commercial benefit, it actually led to Tim, his national team and clubs reaping benefits (Pathak, 2026). We can regard this as a bottom-up marketing case with positive influence.

Final thought

For marketing, how to create and improve high views and attention, whether the process of excessive marketing leads to inconsistency with the needs of the market and customers and whether it does not violate the bottom line of the industry, which is also something that needs attention and response. Under the influence and reach of social media, so that we can be better utilise the double-edged sword role of influencer as help of marketing.

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