The new Kingshot ads running on your mobile phones now feature transfer journalist Fabrizio Romano as part of a broader marketing campaign for the mobile tower defense game by Century Games.
The ads leverage Romano’s famous “Here We Go!” transfer catchphrase to promote the game’s tower-defense and gold-accumulating features.
Even Brazilian football stars like Jorginho and Gabriel Jesus also featured as part of the mobile game’s promotional campaign.
Kingshot is a medieval-themed, idle-survival and 4X strategy mobile game developed by Century Games.
Players act as a governor rebuilding civilization in a war-torn, post-rebellion world by gathering resources, managing survivors, building towns, recruiting heroes, and training armies.
Lately, some football fans who discovered the ad campaign have wondered why these stars participated.
The initial wave of videos began populating timelines on X, catching football fans off guard with Romano discussing base building.
And later, the ads reached maximum saturation across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts during the peak summer football transfer window, intentionally blurring the lines between real football news and mobile game promotion.
With fans seeing Jorginho and Jesus features in the ads, many wondered how much of a budget Century Games had at their disposal.
How much do Kingshot pay for mobile game adds they’ve got Gabriel Jesus and Jorginho😭
— Benj (@Beniesta_) June 18, 2026
Also, other Brazilian stars like Marquinhos and Thiago Silva have also been part of this advertisement.
Century Games hired them as part of a massive promotional push targeting Brazilian audiences alongside other top-tier footballers.
The advertisement budget for this game must be huge pic.twitter.com/mLcPKGdKm8
— Josh (@joshpearson180) June 21, 2026
Alongside the aforementioned football-related personalitities, former English footballers like Michael Owen and John Terry were also hired to promote Kingshot game during the World Cup. Manchester United captain Harry Maguire is also one of the faces of Kingshot game.
But controversies regarding the ad were inevitable. The viewers who saw the ads began to think that all these promotions were done with the help of A.I. And also, the all the faces used in promotion are rumored to be fake.
But the reality of the Kingshot campaign is split: the marketing partnership and the people promoting it are real, but the gameplay shown in the ads is completely fake.
The reports that Century Games hired the likes of Gabriel Jesus, Thiago Silva, Marquinhos, and influencer Fabrizio Romano are completely authentic.
The developer launched a legitimate, high-budget marketing campaign featuring these players to target audiences during the World Cup marketing block.
The footballers and Romano were paid to deliver scripts and pretend to play the game on camera.
We aren’t sure how much are these celebrities being paid but they can definitely afford it as the game reportedly earns close to $1M per day in revenue for Century Games.
