Hublot and FIFA: The 16-Year Partnership That Ended in 2025

Last updated: May 2026

Hublot ended its 16-year partnership with FIFA in mid-December 2025, when CEO Julien Tornare confirmed to Finews the brand would not renew the deal. The relationship spanned four World Cups (2010 South Africa, 2014 Brazil, 2018 Russia, 2022 Qatar) and produced the modern era's most visible link between luxury watchmaking and football.

This is a look back at what that 16-year run actually built. The King Power editions, the bi-retrograde Brazil pieces, the first connected referee watch in the brand's catalog, and the Maradona and Pelé ambassador moments that defined the era. It also covers what comes next. Hublot's exit leaves the "official timekeeper" slot vacant at the luxury level for 2026. A microbrand named Axia Time has picked up a different partnership tier called "official licensed timepiece." 

How Hublot got the FIFA deal (2008–2010)

The Hublot–FIFA story actually starts with TAG Heuer. Both brands sit inside LVMH, and TAG Heuer held the FIFA official timekeeper role for the 2002 Korea/Japan and 2006 Germany tournaments. LVMH acquired Hublot in April 2008 for roughly CHF 500 million (about 2x 2008 sales and 12x 2008 EBIT). With both brands under one roof, the group had options for where to park its big sports assets. The FIFA contract got moved to Hublot.

Hublot had already been building a football presence on its own. The brand signed the Swiss National Team in 2006 (a first for a luxury watch house in football), added UEFA Euro 2008, and partnered with Manchester United the same year. LVMH formally announced Hublot as FIFA official timekeeper in April 2010. The deal covered both the 2010 and 2014 World Cups in a single multi-tournament agreement. The brand was already several years into the football category by that point.

The strategic logic was straightforward. Football has the largest global audience of any sport, and no luxury watchmaker was leaning into it the way Hublot was about to. The bet was visibility. Every scoreboard, every fourth-official substitution board, every referee on the pitch became a Hublot impression for an audience measured in billions.

2010 South Africa: King Power and the Maradona signing

The 2010 tournament was built around the King Power case, a 48mm chassis that Hublot used as the platform for per-country variants. Each variant typically ran to 250 pieces. After Spain won the final at Soccer City in Johannesburg, Hublot added one more piece to the program: the FIFA World Cup Winner's Watch. It was a 100-piece numbered run in Spanish national colors with gold trophy accents, made specifically to honor the champions.

The ambassador move that defined 2010 was Maradona. Hublot signed him in March of that year, just before the tournament, and produced the Big Bang Maradona limited editions in black and blue colorways. The pieces featured a central chronograph with 45-minute football timing on the subdial, a nod to the half length of a regulation match. Then came the photographs that no one in the industry has forgotten: Maradona, coaching Argentina during the tournament, wearing two Big Bang Maradonas at once, one on each wrist. He later said one was for each of his two daughters.

We've handled a few King Power Maradonas over the years on the pre-owned side. The two-watches-at-once image from 2010 still gets brought up in shop conversations more than any other Hublot football piece. As a marketing moment, very little in modern watch ambassadorship has matched it.

2014 Brazil: the Soccer Bang bi-retrograde

For Brazil 2014, Hublot built the program around what the brand internally called the Soccer Bang: the Big Bang Unico Bi-Retrograde Chrono. This watch introduced caliber HUB1260, Hublot's first bi-retrograde movement, with 385 components, a 4Hz beat rate, and 72-hour power reserve in a 45.5mm case. The bi-retrograde function is a chronograph mechanism that displays minutes and seconds on arcs that jump back to zero rather than rotating continuously. It was configured here for the 45-minute half-time format of football.

Hublot released the watch in two references:

Secondary ranges are from Chrono24 listing data as of mid-2026. The King Gold variant trades thinly given the 100-piece run.

2014 also introduced something more lasting than the watch itself. Hublot redesigned the fourth-official substitution boards in the shape of the Big Bang porthole case, the round bezel with exposed H-screws. Twelve years later those boards are still a tournament fixture, instantly recognizable on every televised broadcast. It's one of the most visible pieces of luxury-brand product design in sport, full stop.

2018 Russia: the Referee Connect era

For Russia 2018, Hublot did something the brand had never done before: it built a smartwatch. The Big Bang Referee 2018 (Ref. 400.NX.1100.RX) was Hublot's first connected piece, a 49mm satin-finish titanium case running Wear OS by Google. It was limited to 2,018 pieces at roughly $5,200 retail. Every referee working the tournament received one as part of their kit.

It was also the first Wear OS device to launch, period. Google had rebranded Android Wear to Wear OS the week before Baselworld 2018, and Hublot's referee piece was the inaugural watch on the new platform. For a Swiss luxury house that had never built a smartwatch, taking the launch slot for Google's renamed wearables OS was not the obvious move. The functional pitch was specific to the role: real-time match notifications, goal alerts, VAR signals, lineup info, all on-wrist. The watch worked, the referees actually wore them on the pitch, and the connected category opened a new editorial story for the brand.

As of mid-2026 the 2018 Referee trades on Chrono24 in the $5,700–$6,400 range, roughly flat or slightly above 2018 retail. That's unusual for any connected watch (the category typically loses value fast as the underlying tech ages out). The limited 2,018-piece run plus the referee provenance has held a floor under it.

2022 Qatar: Gen3 connected and the Pelé tribute

The 2022 Qatar edition was the Big Bang e FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 (Ref. 450.CI.1100.RX.FWC22). It used a 44mm black ceramic case with a burgundy and black strap referencing the Qatar national flag colors. Hublot's own press release called it "a Gen3 connected watch": Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 4100 processor, Wear OS 3 by Google, larger AMOLED display, and an exclusive Match Mode app that tracked live tournament data. The platform had moved from Gen1 (the 2018 Referee on the original Wear OS) through Gen2 (the 2020 Big Bang e) to Gen3 here. It was limited to 1,000 pieces at $5,800 retail. 129 officials wore the referee version on the pitch during the tournament.

The 1,000-piece run sold out before the tournament ended. The aBlogtoWatch hands-on noted that the Doha airport boutique received its shipment two weeks before the semi-finals and cleared the entire allocation in that window.

The other defining moment was Pelé. Hublot had signed him in 2016, and he was photographed wearing the Big Bang e Qatar piece during the tournament. He died on December 29, 2022, just over a week after the final. Hublot has continued tribute pieces in his name (and in Maradona's, who died in November 2020) ever since.

As of mid-2026, the Qatar 2022 Big Bang e trades in the $5,500–$7,500 range on Chrono24. The wider band reflects the same connected-watch obsolescence question that applies to the 2018 referee. The flag-color strap and limited run support the floor; the dated chipset caps the ceiling.

Why Hublot walked away in December 2025

In mid-December 2025, in coverage by Swiss industry outlet Finews, Julien Tornare made it official: Hublot would not renew its long-standing sponsorship partnership with FIFA, and Hublot would no longer be part of the 2026 tournament in the United States as it had been in Qatar.

Tornare took the Hublot CEO role in September 2024. Per Finews, his stated reasoning for ending the FIFA deal was primarily cost-benefit considerations, paired with an intent to rebalance Hublot's sports and culture spending toward UEFA competitions, Latin American football, and adjacent verticals in art and music. He did not give a specific dollar figure for what the FIFA partnership cost the brand. The pivot has been framed around resource reallocation rather than any single trigger event.

It's worth being precise about what ended and what didn't. The FIFA tournament asset (World Cup official timekeeper, fourth-official boards at the tournament, referee watches) is gone. Everything else in Hublot's football stack is unaffected. The brand remains official timekeeper for UEFA Euro and the UEFA Champions League. It still partners with the Premier League and with Bayern Munich, Juventus, PSG, Chelsea, Ajax, Bournemouth, and Sporting CP. Personal ambassador deals with Kylian Mbappé, Carlo Ancelotti, José Mourinho, and the Pelé and Maradona estates are also personal contracts that continue independently of the FIFA partnership. Kylian Mbappé's Hublot ambassadorship was a separate signing from 2018 and runs on its own timeline.

The clearest signal that Hublot has not exited football overall came in April 2026. The brand released the Big Bang Reloaded Mbappé (Ref. 421.HX.2019.NR.MBP26) at Watches & Wonders, a 200-piece limited run at CHF 24,900. Hublot still has the most photographed footballer of his generation on its books. It just no longer has the tournament itself.

What's next for FIFA's watch program

FIFA has not named a replacement luxury official timekeeper for the 2026 tournament. As of mid-2026, that slot sits vacant at the luxury level for the first time in over two decades of continuous coverage by major Swiss brands.

What FIFA has done is introduce a new partnership tier called "official licensed timepiece," held for 2026 by Axia Time, a New York–based Swiss-made microbrand. This is the first time watches have been included in FIFA's official licensed-products program. Axia's collection covers 14 country designs with three models per country at production runs of 80 to 400 pieces, anchored by a flagship dive watch called the Argos. The full breakdown is in our coverage of Axia Time's licensed FIFA program.

This is a different category from what Hublot held, not a like-for-like replacement. "Official timekeeper" historically meant the brand whose watches went on the wrists of referees and whose boards stood on the touchline. "Official licensed timepiece" is a commercial licensing program that sits closer to how FIFA handles apparel and accessories. The distinction matters when you read the coverage. For the full arc of who has held FIFA timekeeping rights going back to the late 1970s, see the full FIFA watch partner timeline from Seiko to Axia.

Whether FIFA eventually names a new luxury timekeeper for 2026 (or for 2030) is the open question. For now, the headline is that the most visible 16-year run of luxury watch branding in football history has ended. The World Cup goes into its centennial-era tournament without a Swiss luxury house on its scoreboard for the first time since 2002.

Sources: Finews (mid-December 2025) for the exit announcement (Finews framed Tornare's position in reporter prose rather than direct quotation; we paraphrase accordingly). Hublot brand press archives for retail prices, references, and piece counts on the 2010, 2014, 2018, and 2022 editions, plus Hublot's own Qatar 2022 release for the Gen3 platform designation and Wear OS 3 / Snapdragon Wear 4100 specs. 9to5Google for the 2018 Referee being the first Wear OS device to launch after Google's rebrand. aBlogtoWatch hands-on for the Doha airport boutique sell-out detail on the Qatar 2022 piece. SoccerBible and Le Figaro for the Mbappé signing context. WWD and Oracle of Time on the Axia Time partnership. Chrono24 listing data as of mid-2026 for secondary market ranges. Secondary market commentary reflects industry experience and is not financial advice; ranges vary by condition, completeness of box and papers, and dealer. The 2026 FIFA World Cup runs June 11 – July 19, 2026 across the United States, Canada, and Mexico.