World Football Summit Awards 2026

A year ago we flew home from Madrid as runners-up in two categories at the World Football Summit Awards.

This year, PLAYBACK won Best Growth Strategy at the WFS Awards 2026, sponsored by Deloitte, ahead of Stats Perform x Ekstraklasa and Mercury13.

Same category, same city, twelve months apart. That gap is the part I care about. Losing to Juventus was a fair result - we were less than a year old and they're Juventus. Coming back and winning it means the growth was real, not a good pitch deck.

And it was mostly unglamorous work. We now power 75,000+ youth players across 25+ clubs, academies, leagues and venues in 10+ countries. None of that came from one big moment - it came from one club at a time saying yes.

I was in Madrid for about 24 hours. Hugo Izard Garcia from Deloitte presented the trophy at Teatro Eslava, and while we were there he hosted us at the Deloitte Sports Innovation Hub to talk about what PLAYBACK and Deloitte could build together. That conversation is the one I'm most excited about.

I also got to speak with Vicente del Bosque and Juan Mata, which I'm still not over.

Thank you to the whole WFS team for backing us two years running. See you in Madrid next year.