Achraf Hakimi just put IShowSpeed's World Cup anthem in front of one of football's largest social media audiences — and he did it without saying a word.
The Paris Saint-Germain and Morocco defender used IShowSpeed's song "Champions" as the audio for a recent TikTok post, complete with World Cup and Morocco hashtags. Fan account IShowSpeedHQ spotted it and shared the screenshot alongside a photo of Hakimi and Speed together at a stadium, the right-back in full PSG kit, posing for a selfie with the streamer.
Why Hakimi's co-sign actually matters
This isn't some fringe player giving a nod to a content creator. Hakimi is one of the three or four best fullbacks on the planet, a central figure in Morocco's post-2022 rebuild, and someone with a following that spans European club football and the entire African continent. When he puts a track in a TikTok post, it lands in feeds that have nothing to do with streaming culture.
That's the point. Speed has spent the last couple of years embedding himself into football — attending tournaments, meeting players, building genuine relationships with the sport. The Hakimi photo isn't staged PR. These two have history.
No official World Cup partnership has been announced, and it would be a stretch to read too much into a single TikTok. But the song's trajectory is hard to ignore. Each time a recognizable name in football attaches themselves to "Champions," the track moves further into territory that actually reaches the global football audience — not just Speed's existing base.
The 2026 build-up is already here
The 2026 FIFA World Cup still feels distant, but the cultural groundwork gets laid long before the first ball is kicked. Sponsors know it, broadcasters know it, and apparently so does Achraf Hakimi.
Whether "Champions" becomes an official tournament anthem or just the song that was everywhere in the lead-up, moments like this are how that kind of reach gets built — one TikTok post at a time, from someone with 80 million followers and a World Cup semi-final on his résumé.
