UEFA #RealScars

Client: UEFA

Shoot the Company, was at the centre of a new Respect Campaign for UEFA called, ‘#RealScars’. First released alongside the UEFA Women’s EURO 2022, the campaign highlights the devastating effects of online abuse directed at footballers, coaches and officials across social media platforms and educates them on how to best defend themselves against such abuse.

The one minute Real Scars campaign is supported by Spurs and South Korea legend Son Heung-min, Olympique Lyonnais and France star Wendie Renard, Chelsea and Italy midfield player Jorginho, and Aston Villa and Switzerland player Alisha Lehmann, all of whom have suffered or witnessed abuse online. Players were shot individually before creating graphics of life-like scars that moved with the players skin to feel as real as possible. The video was shown online and on the giant screen at all UEFA Women’s EURO 2022 matches to a record stadium audience of 574,000 while racking up millions of views online. It was later shown across multiple in-stadium perimeter boards and distributed to more than 50 countries on UEFA.tv Following the success of the Real Scars release, UEFA commissioned the piece into a TVC to be shown at the start of the European season in September 2022. This is supported by a 12 minute documentary which explores in greater detail the online abuse suffered by those working in football. At a time where online abuse is all too prevalent in society, and platforms struggle to control the abuse, this campaign was of huge importance.