Sports Events and Ambush Marketing in Guatemala

Alegalis | In connection with the FIFA World Cup 2026, competitors across multiple industries have sought ways to participate in the extensive marketing activity surrounding the sporting event. This has sparked an increasingly relevant discussion across Latin America regarding compliance with the intellectual property laws applicable to such marketing strategies and the protection of the rights of FIFA and its sponsors.

During the first weeks of April 2026, the latest amendments to Mexico’s Federal Law for the Protection of Industrial Property were published. Among the most significant changes was the incorporation of provisions aimed at curbing ambush marketing. This concept refers to the creation of a false impression that a brand has an official association with or sponsorship of an event when, in fact, no such relationship exists.

The reform introduced the following as an administrative infringement in Mexico: "Engaging, in the course of industrial or commercial activities, in acts that cause or induce public confusion, error, or deception by making the public believe or assume without grounds: (...) the existence of an official sponsorship relationship between a distinctive sign and a public or private mass-attendance event."

As a result, Mexican law now imposes significant fines on acts that lead the public to mistakenly or falsely believe that an official sponsorship relationship exists with an event. This requires competitors that are not official sponsors to develop more creative marketing strategies while avoiding direct references that could create such an impression.

This amendment represents an important milestone in the evolution of intellectual property regulations in Latin America when compared with the legal framework currently in place in other countries.

In Guatemala, there is no specific regulation addressing ambush marketing, creating significant implications for event organizers, sponsors, and competitors. Instead, the legal framework provides mechanisms that offer only partial protection against such practices. For example, trademark infringement actions allow trademark owners to challenge the unauthorized use of their marks. Likewise, unfair competition actions may be brought against acts that create confusion or a likelihood of association with another party’s trademark.

The main limitation of Guatemalan legislation is that these actions revolve around the protection of registered or well-known trademarks rather than the protection of a mass-attendance event and its sponsors as such.

On the one hand, this requires event organizers to own a registered trademark or invest substantially in positioning the event’s brand to achieve well-known status. On the other hand, it weakens the protection available to event sponsors that lack such trademark protection. Nevertheless, this does not mean that non-sponsoring competitors are free to engage in ambush marketing, as both sponsors and organizers may still rely on the reputation of the distinctive signs identifying the event to support claims of trademark infringement or unfair competition.

Against this backdrop, it is advisable to have a sponsorship agreement that expressly authorizes marketing activities related to a sporting event or any other type of event. In the absence of such authorization, it is recommended to adopt marketing strategies that make only general references while avoiding direct or indirect references that could be interpreted by the public as an attempt to associate with the event’s official brands.

Alegalis has a team specialized in Corporate Law and Intellectual Property, prepared to advise clients on structuring sponsorship arrangements and ensuring compliance with the regulations applicable to their business advertising and marketing strategies.

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