Sydney influencer battles FIFA and Instagram as his business evaporates
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At the height of the FIFA World Cup fever in mid-June, Sydneysider Will Atkinson posted an Instagram video of himself juggling a football, having seen similar posts featuring vision of and reaction to matchplay go viral.
The 27-year-old had no idea the post, where a laptop playing a brief snippet of an SBS broadcast was visible to the side, would be the start of a battle with a global sporting behemoth that would kill his budding content creator career and lead to his main income source vanishing.
William Atkinson has had his Instagram account - his main source of income - suspended after FIFA accused him of copyright.Steven Siewert
FIFA - which is set to announce this year’s hypercommercialised event generated $US15 billion ($22 billion) - almost immediately accused Atkinson, who still works casually at a shoe warehouse, of infringing on its copyright.
The powerful sporting body, whose lucrative TV rights deals drew as many as two billion viewers on Monday morning’s final alone, wanted Atkinson’s videos, served to a comparatively meagre audience of just more than 10,000 followers, to be taken down. Instagram complied, with an email to Atkinson, seen by this masthead, stating that “the removal decision was made by our technology”, suggesting the development was automated.
Atkinson was stunned. “It’s not like I was livestreaming the World Cup and earning money from views. I was making comedic takes, I was being creative purely to engage in this global event that everyone was getting behind,” he said. “It’s everywhere online, so if this gets taken down, surely every clip from a fan at a live site or in a stadium should also go down.”
Screenshot of one of Atkinson’s posts that FIFA has complained aboutWill Atkinson
Despite an online ecosystem full of influencers and other users sharing videos from World Cup stadiums, match broadcasts and commentary about the event that are still online, FIFA complained about several of Atkinson’s posts.
Some of his subsequent videos featuring similar content were also flagged and taken down over the following days, but not all.
With a copyright strike against him, he lost the ability to cross-post with brands, a key requirement for fulfilling his deals with brands such as sports shoemaker Hoka. He claims a deal with a clothing chain and a headphone company were at risk as a result. “It’s been a genuine financial and personal toll,” he said.
By mid-July, he had received four copyright infringement strikes, even as he began the process of appealing FIFA’s claims, arguing the posts’ removal was unwarranted due to their creative nature.
Under the United States’ Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), the laws FIFA relied on to issue its takedown requests to Instagram, once an initial claim is countered, the complaining rights holder has 14 days to show that it will pursue the claim and launch a lawsuit over the matter.
Australian copyright law, however, allows for “fair dealing” exceptions to copyrighted materials, with a threat or lack thereof of stealing audience from the original a key consideration.
Given that no such lawsuit had been lodged within 14 days, and the fact that not all of his posts had been subjected to takedowns, Atkinson continued posting to pursue his goal of building a broader following, deciding to focus on being a sports-adjacent social media influencer in March.
The former professional mountain runner had gained initial moments of fame through videos partnering with electrolyte company Hyro, including a successful experiment where he outran a Sydney train, racing out of a carriage at Wynyard station, sprinting through the CBD, and re-entering it when it pulled up at the next station, Town Hall.
Atkinson had also repeatedly tried contacting Meta, Instagram’s owner, to resolve the issues and have the posts in question restored. He claims the company was poor at responding, and at one point said it could not provide an update on his videos being restored due to a privacy issue.
Atkinson claims Meta, Instagram’s owner, has failed to restore his account despite a legal obligation to do so.Steven Siewert
Meta’s responses were all the more galling to Atkinson because he pays the company $150 per month for its “Meta Verified” subscription for creators, which offers extra features as well as a claim of enhanced customer support.
Atkinson was at pains to point out how Instagram’s own support website explains its legal obligations to restore content where a copyright holder does not proceed with a lawsuit. Instead, Meta was claiming the matter was a dispute between FIFA and Atkinson, and a matter for FIFA to resolve.
Then, on July 16, Atkinson posted a seven-second video meme about an English footballer, Jude Bellingham, which he says “went crazy viral”, gaining 12 million views in ten hours.
Within hours, he received a fifth copyright infringement letter from FIFA. Two minutes later, his Instagram account was suspended entirely.
“I thought, this can’t be real, I’m just a guy posting funny content.”
He immediately raised the issue with Meta, who he claims shut down his chats and is now unresponsive.
Soon, the reality of the situation set in. Atkinson had made about $10,000 in brand partnerships since becoming a creator in March, and was now unable to fulfil agreements he had with various businesses.
The next morning, a pair of shoes that company Hoka sent him arrived. The company was expecting him to produce Instagram videos promoting them. Not only was this impossible, but his only channel of communication with the company, through Instagram messages, had disappeared.
Suddenly, the more than $25,000 he had expected to make in the second half of 2026 through burgeoning brand partnership offers was slipping away.
“I never wanted to land myself in trouble, but I’m up against two enormous, unaccountable organisations with no real way to get a human being to listen,” he said.
A Meta spokesman said the company would look into Atkinson’s matter. But neither Meta nor FIFA provided a response by publication deadline.
For now, Atkinson is eager to have the matter resolved, engaging lawyers who have sent letters of demand to Meta and FIFA.
“This has really hit my financial and emotional wellbeing now,” Atkinson said. “All I want is my account back online.”
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Elias Visontay is a National Consumer Affairs Reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email.