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Shantelle Nagarajan
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Al Haboob turns a racing camel into the World Cup’s unlikeliest pundit

Shantelle Nagarajan
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Paul Pogba and Fariz the racing camel weigh in with their predictions to the 2026 FIFA World Cup in this hilariously absurd spot from M+C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment.

Al Haboob

With the 2026 FIFA World Cup now under way across the United States, Canada and Mexico, M+C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment Middle East has handed professional camel racing team Al Haboob a pundit of its own.

The campaign, released in a teaser video and hero film on Al Haboob’s social platforms, follows the team’s ambassador Paul Pogba lead a camel named Fariz to a line-up of country-branded water buckets to choose a predicted winner for this year’s tournament.

Fariz confidently sticks his head into France’s bucket, laying down the verdict that Les Bleus will take the trophy home – which coincidently happens to be the very team Pogba was a World Cup winner with in 2018.

Running across Al Haboob’s Meta and TikTok accounts, the hero film’s absurdity has gone viral, raking in 1.2m views within days of going live.

“Everyone looks for a way into the World Cup, but most of it disappears into the noise,” said Victor Sharp, Social Media Director, M+C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment Middle East. “We wanted Al Haboob to do the opposite – collide their world with football’s biggest moment in a way only they could. A psychic camel backed by a World Cup winner is unmistakably Al Haboob, and that’s why people are sharing it.”

M+C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment designed the work to run for the length of the tournament rather than as a one-off.

Further installments will see Al Haboob’s founders, Omar Almaeena and Safwan Modir, make their own calls on the finalists with the help of their camels. As the World Cup unfolds the campaign revisits each prediction against real results – engineering reactive moments every time a pick is proven right or wrong, and keeping the brand in the conversation from group stage to final.

Founded by the Saudi entrepreneurs and filmmakers behind Netflix’s Camel Quest, Al Haboob is on a mission to take the Kingdom’s oldest sport global and lay the foundations for the world’s first professional Camel Racing League.

Credits:

Agency: M+C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment Middle East

Client: Al Haboob

Ambassador: Paul Pogba

Tags:2026 FIFA World CupAl HaboobCamel racingCampaignFifa World CupM+C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment Middle EastOmar AlmaeenaSafwan ModirSaudi Arabiasocial mediaTeamThe WorkVictor Sharpviral
the authorShantelle Nagarajan
Shantelle Nagarajan is Campaign Middle East’s Reporter who covers marketing news which focuses on FMCG, real estate and brand retail industries. Her features delve into brand strategy, appointments, trends in consumer behaviour and CX. Shantelle also contributes to social media coverage, editorial event programming and print content work. She previously worked in PR and marketing, most recently at Edelman, where she was part of the Brand team. When she’s not writing for her day job, you can find her with her nose buried in a book, playing at a weekly open mic night or doom-scrolling the latest make-up challenges on TikTok.
All posts byShantelle Nagarajan

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