Football.com TV launches as the first 24/7 global football talk show, with South African voices in the line-up
Over 150 presenters, journalists, pundits, and content creators across five continents, including leading voices from South Africa, will power Sporty Group’s always-live digital football network built around debate and opinion, featuring José Mourinho as a global ambassador
Football.com TV launches today as a new 24/7 global digital network dedicated to the news, stories and debate shaping the premium game. Taking the always-on model of global news networks and applying it entirely to football, Football.com TV will broadcast on YouTube with no ad breaks and no conventional programming restrictions, built for a global generation of fans who follow football throughout the day.
One of the key figures behind the launch is José Mourinho, who will serve as Football.com TV’s global ambassador. One of the most recognised personalities in world football, Mourinho will help introduce the network, built around knowledge, personality, and strong opinions.
Somewhere in the world, there’s always a debate around football.
A match has just finished. A manager is under pressure. A transfer story is breaking. A fanbase is celebrating. Another is furious. Someone has an opinion. Someone else thinks it is completely wrong.
Football.com TV is built for that moment. Every moment.
Presenters and contributors across different countries and time zones will take over as the football agenda moves with them. From the Premier League, Champions League, and LALIGA to the biggest clubs, players, managers and stories shaping the premium game, the conversation never has to stop.
Because somewhere, it is always prime time.
Prime time in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Lusaka
In South Africa and across Southern Africa, football is a daily conversation. It is the Soweto derby argued over at work on a Monday, Premier League allegiances passed down through families, and group chats that never quite go quiet.
That conversation has rarely been louder. In a year when Bafana Bafana reached the knockout stage of the FIFA World Cup, South African fans have more to say than ever, and on South African time, Saturday Premier League kick-offs land in the late afternoon and Champions League nights run late into the evening. Football.com TV will be live through all of it.
South African pundits Emilio Hartogh, Jay Mngomezulu and Tanaka Mhundawa are among the voices joining the network. They bring the opinions, humour and loyalties of one of the continent’s most passionate football markets to a global stage, and they will be arguing with fans and pundits in London, Madrid, Lagos and Nairobi in real time.
Elías Gallego, VP of Media, Marketing and Business Development at Sporty Group, said:
“South African fans watched their team make history this year on the biggest stage in the game, and they have opinions about all of it. Football.com TV gives those voices a seat at the biggest table in football, alongside the best of the rest of the world, live, every day.”
A global football network built for the internet
Football.com TV launches as a 100% digital product on YouTube, making the network immediately accessible to a global audience, with plans to expand to other streaming platforms.
Football.com TV is the new television arm of Football.com, expanding a fast-growing football platform with a global community of more than 500,000 followers across its social platforms. Recently, Football.com launched its state-of-the-art LiveScore app on Android, combining real-time scores with innovative features designed around the modern football fan.
With the launch of a major new media venture, owner Sporty Group is extending its investment in sports media into a global digital football proposition.
Gallego added:
“Football is global, but traditional football media is still largely built around individual countries, standalone shows and fixed schedules. We think there is another way. A better way.”
Football.com TV starts with a very simple idea: the conversation about football never stops. When Europe and Africa go to sleep, millions of fans elsewhere are waking up. When one match finishes, another story is beginning. We’ve built a home where that conversation can live continuously, with brilliant people from around the world and with the audience genuinely part of it.”
One game. A world of opinions.
Football.com TV is built around conversation and community, not broadcast rights. The network will not show live matches. Instead, it will focus on everything that happens around the world’s biggest games: the build-up, the debate, the opinions, the reactions and the conversations that continue long after the final whistle.
At the heart of Football.com TV will be live debate.
Strong opinions. Different perspectives. Arguments. Analysis. Interviews. Breaking stories. Watchalongs. The biggest stories in football and the takes that get fans talking.
Football.com TV has assembled more than 150 voices from five continents to reflect the changing way fans follow football. Established journalists and broadcasters will sit alongside some of football’s most exciting digital creators and a new generation of emerging presenters and pundits. Leading the network are creators like Charlie Carrillo, who has 970,000 followers on TikTok; Pachu Zubiri, with almost half a million fans; and Klinton Cod, the Nigerian creator with close to one million followers across his social channels.
Different ages. Different backgrounds. Different countries. Different clubs. And, very often, completely different opinions.
All with the ambition to create the best football debate in the world.
Programming will run in live blocks throughout the day, with hosts joined by rotating groups of pundits and creators to discuss the stories driving football across the world, hold live watchalongs around the biggest games and feature interviews with globally relevant names from across the game, unexpected guests and surprise appearances, designed to make the network as unpredictable as the sport it covers.
The audience is part of the show
Football.com TV has been built 100% for digital audiences, rather than adapting a traditional television format for the internet.
Live chat, comments, polls and audience reactions will feed directly into programmes. Presenters will respond to viewers in real time. Members of its community will also regularly join programmes to debate alongside its hosts and pundits.
Sometimes, the best contribution to a conversation may not come from a television studio, but from a fan watching on a phone in Soweto or Durban, thousands of kilometres from the studio.
Built live. Built social.
A dedicated social media team will work continuously alongside the network, turning its strongest debates, opinions, interviews, reactions and unexpected moments into a constant flow of content across social platforms, allowing the best moments from Football.com TV to travel beyond the original broadcast and become part of the wider football conversation online.
The next generation of football voices
Football.com TV also intends to become a platform for the next generation of football media talent, giving emerging presenters and pundits from different parts of the world the opportunity to build their voices in front of a global audience. For young presenters and pundits in South Africa and Southern Africa, that means a global audience without having to leave home to find it.
A young journalist can share a programme with an established broadcaster. A creator can challenge a former player. A supporter can join the conversation from home. The result is a constantly evolving line-up rather than a traditional fixed studio cast.
Football.com TV will be live when the news breaks, live before the biggest games, live while fans watch them and still live when everyone wants to argue about what just happened.
There will be familiar faces.
There will be new ones.
And there will almost certainly be disagreements.
Because for billions of people around the world, football does not fit into a two-hour television slot.
Neither will Football.com TV.
