Footballco hires Bafta winner Grant Best to lead premium longform video

Football media company Footballco has hired producer and director Grant Best to lead the company’s longform video output and talent-led shows across its brands.

Grant Best

Footballco is behind football brands including Goal, Kooora (Middle East), Calciomercato (Italy), Voetbalzone (Netherlands) and Spox (Germany).

Its portfolio also includes football culture brand Mundial and women’s football platform Indivisa, as well as fan-focused brands such as Front Three and Fanzone in the UK, 1vs1 in Italy and Yalla Goal in the Middle East.

According to the company, its video content is viewed more than one billion times each month.

Best will focus on developing new premium longform video projects and talent-led productions as executive producer. He will report to Footballco’s exec VP of content and operations, James Lamon.

Best previously won a Bafta for his work on Rio Ferdinand: Being Mum & Dad (BBC One) and a Sports Emmy for his work on ESPN/Disney/ABC’s World Cup coverage.

His other credits include drama Floodlights (BBCOne), Ronaldo Nazário’s World CupStory: O Fenômeno (DAZN/Globo/BBC), Sylvester Stallone’s One Night (DAZN) and Eva Longoria’s La Guerra Civil, which premiered at Sundance.

Lamon said: “As we’ve seen with the success of projects like Drive to Survive and Welcome to Wrexham, sports fans old and new are being drawn to longform sports storytelling like never before. The best of these projects grow the fandom itself by introducing new audiences to sport.

“With over 30 years of global broadcasting and content creation experience across all media, Grant’s expertise will be invaluable in growing Footballco’s premium video output across our brands and taking our storytelling to another level.”