Portuguese international Bruno Fernandes is the new official brand ambassador of Vietnamese illegal casino QH88 - except he isn't: the "Bruno Fernandes" featured in the operator's promotional video is a strikingly realistic AI-generated avatar, the very first of its kind.
By Philippe Auclair
Asian-facing illegal sports betting operators have never shied away from using the names and likenesses of football's most recognisable players without their authorisation. Very few, in fact, resist the temptation to plaster their apps and websites with action photographs of Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé and the like. A few players have tried in the past to issue cease and desist notices to those operators - Karim Benzéma is one of them - but in vain. Local regulators, when they exist, rarely police copyright infringements. Pursuing the matter in court is a pipedream: whoever owns and runs these companies is both unidentified and out of reach.
Yet, so far, those illegal casinos had refrained from claiming official endorsements by the game's biggest superstars.
This is no longer the case. QH88, a Vietnamese illegal casino which appears to be accessible globally without using a VPN, has stolen the identity of Portuguese international and current England's "Footballer of the Year" Bruno Fernandes to create an AI avatar and present him as their official brand ambassador, which he categorically is not and never will be. Should he endorse an illegal sportsbook, he would be found guilty of a very serious breach of Fifa's Code of Ethics and find himself on the receiving end of a ban from all football - just as he is about to enter the fray at the 2026 World Cup, one of the key players of a Portuguese t...
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