Banijay Benelux launches professional football club in the Netherlands

L to R: Ilias Vietto, Aimane Charbon and Kleine John

MIPCOM: Continuing the recent trend for football clubs as content engines, Banijay Benelux has launched an entirely new club of its own in the Netherlands.

FC Failliet/Finesse (FCF) will be the Netherlands’ first officially KNVB-registered football club designed around leading digital creators.

The club was conceived by Banijay’s Dutch sports-focused firm Southfields and Banijay NXT and founded by creators Ilias Vietto, Aimane Charbon and Kleine John, combining their global social media reach with professional football competition and sports storytelling.

The two companies point out that some individual creators have more followers than some well-known football clubs and with this new venture will aim to merge the reach of digital creators with the universal passion for football, creating a club that could compete professionally while delivering engaging multi-platform content.

The club is fully registered with the KNVB, giving it the potential to climb the professional football pyramid in the Netherlands. Based at FC Weesp, FCF competes in KNVB’s Fifth Division West 1.

Southfields and Banijay NXT will produce and document content around FCF’s journey, sharing daily updates on TikTok and Instagram, and weekly vlogs on YouTube. The club’s first home match livestream attracted over 23,000 viewers, and its social channels have already generated more than 22 million views.

Football is proving to be a key vehicle in the content business with Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s Welcome To Wrexham series on Disney already promoting the previously non-league Welsh side as high as the Championship, Sony Pictures Television partnering with Manchester City and The City Football Group on content initiatives, and former Netflix chief Erik Barmack looking to buy a majority stake in existing clubs.

While traditional England matches and FA Cup semi-finals are now struggling to sell out Wembley Stadium, The Sidemen’s influencer exhibition match sold out the national stadium in 90 seconds and legacy sports media like Sky Sports is increasingly commissioning influencer led content like The Saturday Social and Scenes to stop the bleed of young audiences from its channels.

Naique Tanate, head of Banijay NXT, said on the third day of Mipcom: “With FCF, we turned an idea into reality: to combine the universal appeal of football with the creativity of digital creators.”

Ernst Veldkamp, CEO of Southfields, adds: “FCF demonstrates how established production expertise can unlock the potential of digital creators at scale. This collaboration is a blueprint for the future of entertainment, merging real-world sport with social storytelling, reaching new audiences, and creating new revenue opportunities for Southfields, creators and clubs alike.”