FM26 Creator Strategy
Football Manager, 2025
Embedding Football Manager in the football conversation through creator-led storytelling.
MY ROLE
Led strategy and planning for Football Manager’s largest creator campaign, partnering with Copa90 to build a global programme rooted in football culture.
CONTEXT
Football Manager has always influenced how football is talked about. Its language and ideas show up across fans, pundits and players. Those conversations were already happening across creators, but FM itself wasn’t really part of them.
The goal was for FM to claim back its cultural cache. That meant moving away from creator activity built around promotion and towards formats that could stand naturally within football conversation.
STRATEGY
Copa90’s Curva offered a global network of creators already embedded inside football culture.
The formats were built around how people already talk about football, with FM26’s new features sitting naturally inside those conversations.
UGC filters using the Premier League and English Football League licences let people pick XIs and take part in the debates they’d usually just watch.
“Anyone Can Be A Manager” saw Big John, The United Stand and The Arsenal Grandma run their own versions, using FM to respond to matches in their own voice.
With women’s football creators, we used the Women's Super League licence as a backdrop, with influential voices discussing the game in their own way.
Tacticos on X leaned into analysis. Threads broke down the new systems and player roles for FM26, using the depth of the game to drive debate.
The approach was built on storytelling, not advertising, allowing FM to appear more naturally within football conversations across different markets.
WHAT CHANGED
FM became part of the conversation through creators’ own content, not traditional branded posts.
Creators used FM concepts in debates, analysis and storytelling instead of directly promoting the game. Those ideas were picked up, challenged and carried across different football audiences and communities.
Success of the campaign became less about reach and more about whether FM felt present in football culture again.
9.8M
impressions across channels
166%
of target reach achieved
MOST-COMPREHENSIVE
influencer strategy to date
Images & Video: Copa90, CURVA and Creator Partners