UK fans struggle to spot AI sports sites, survey finds

DoubleVerify has published research with YouGov showing that fewer than half of UK consumers feel confident identifying AI-generated content online. It also said it had uncovered a network of AI-generated sports websites targeting UK football fans.

The survey of 2,000 UK consumers found that 41% felt confident spotting AI-generated content, while 92% said its rise was making it harder to trust information online. Another 81% said they were concerned about encountering fake or misleading AI content designed to appear genuine.

The findings point to a gap between public concern about synthetic media and people's ability to recognise it in practice. DoubleVerify linked that gap to a cluster of more than 40 UK-based sports domains that it said were producing AI-written articles and pushing them into large online fan communities.

"As AI-generated content becomes more prevalent, the challenge now shifts to identifying it," said Stuart Flint, Managing director, EMEA, DoubleVerify. "Consumers are increasingly sceptical, but they don't feel equipped to distinguish between authentic and synthetic content. That creates a meaningful vulnerability across the open web and social platforms."

Sports network

The websites identified by DoubleVerify use generic names such as sportupdatenow, soccertrend and sportmoves. Some publish more than 10 sports articles a day without clearly identified editorial staff or original reporting, according to the company.

DoubleVerify said the material ranged from fully AI-generated articles to AI-rewritten stories copied from established UK news publishers. In some cases, the stories included fabricated quotes attributed to real athletes and public figures.

The company described the distribution tactic as "FanFarming", a process in which links to the articles are seeded into established sports fan groups on major online platforms. The aim, it said, was to draw readers back to websites that then monetise the traffic through advertising.

Based on DoubleVerify's estimates, including distribution through fan pages, the network has already been exposed to hundreds of thousands of UK sports fans. Several of the domains also appeared to carry malicious advertising, the report said.

How it spreads

The report said sports fan communities are particularly vulnerable because they are built around breaking news, transfer rumours and match reaction. Posts often use urgent language to encourage clicks, then direct users to pages filled with display advertising.

One example involved an article on sportsrock.co.uk that attributed a fabricated quote to Sir Alex Ferguson about a Manchester United transfer target. DoubleVerify said the article was later shared in an online fan group called Fabrizio Romano Transfer News, which it said had 3.8 million members.

DoubleVerify said there was no evidence Ferguson had made the quoted statement. It added that the underlying transfer rumour was real, but the quote was invented.

Another example involved a story circulated in a Chelsea fan group that used a real match result as the basis for an alleged "locker room crisis". According to DoubleVerify, the article relied on invented quotes, while the actual post-match comments from club captain Reece James had been routine and had not criticised teammates or the manager.

The report also described an Arsenal-related post claiming defender Myles Lewis-Skelly had said it was "time for me to join Chelsea" after being "thrown under the bus". DoubleVerify said neither the transfer development nor the statement had occurred.

Ad risk

DoubleVerify said advertisements from major brands had appeared on some of the sites when campaigns did not include protections against low-quality AI-generated content. It argued that this exposed advertisers to reputational risk while also diverting spending from established publishers.

Some of the same accounts repeatedly posted links to several domains in the network within the same online communities, suggesting coordinated distribution across multiple sites, DoubleVerify said. It also said the model could generate thousands of pages and millions of potential ad impressions at low cost.

The research comes as concern grows across the media and advertising industries over the spread of AI-generated articles, images and videos that mimic legitimate reporting. The issue is particularly sensitive in sport, where transfer speculation and fast-moving news can make false claims seem plausible.

DoubleVerify said the challenge was not limited to football. In the first weeks of the year alone, its fraud unit identified thousands of similar sites across several languages, showing how quickly automated publishing is scaling across the wider web.

"This is a trust gap at scale," said Flint. "Consumers know there's a problem, but they don't feel equipped to identify it. That creates an opening for bad actors to insert low-quality, AI-generated content into environments people already trust, like sports fan communities."