Robot Football Match: While the world continues to cheer for Paris Saint-Germain at the ongoing Club World Cup, China has already stepped into the future. Beijing launched its own humanoid robot football league, offering a glimpse into what many are calling a spectacle “far more entertaining than regular soccer.”
On June 28, four university teams fielded humanoid robots in the country’s first fully autonomous 3-on-3 AI-powered football matches. These matches marked the beginning of China’s bold move toward AI-driven sports entertainment and served as a preview for the upcoming World Humanoid Robot Games, which Beijing plans to host. Booster Robotics, the event’s organizer, emphasized that each robot used artificial intelligence to strategize and play independently, without any human assistance or remote control during the matches.
Tsinghua University’s THU Robotics team claimed the championship, while China Agricultural University’s Mountain Sea team secured second place. Tsinghua University’s Power team and Beijing Information Science and Technology University’s Blaze team shared the third spot. With this groundbreaking event, China has made a bold statement; it’s not just playing the game, it’s redefining it.
Take a look at the video:
NEW: China launches its first humanoid robot soccer league in Beijing.
This is way more entertaining than regular soccer.
The AI-controlled robots were supplied by Booster Robotics for the tournament and have the skills of 5 to 6 year old children.
Robots were seen getting… pic.twitter.com/VTLQOPjU3c
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 1, 2025
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The head of Shangyicheng Group, which runs the competition, Bian Yuansong, said that RoBoLeague is a test-bed for cutting-edge technologies including multi-agent collaborative decision-making and bipedal dynamic balance. The event establishes a strong basis for improving the sensitivity of embodied robots in addition to offering vital technical validation for the football portion of upcoming humanoid robot games.
“The technologies showcased during the competition will be rapidly translated into real-world applications, directly benefiting industrial production and everyday life,” Bian stated. To encourage the research and practical use of humanoid robots in a variety of contexts, he continued, the team intends to create a number of robot competition intellectual properties, such as a robot half-marathon and RoBoLeague.
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