LONDON: Having appointed Whisper earlier this year, UEFA has expanded the UK-based sports production company’s mandate to that of broadcast and digital content production partner, delivering both digital and broadcast output to viewers across the world, as part of a multi-year agreement.
Whisper delivers the prestigious UEFA Champions League Magazine Show series, as well as making content for UEFA across its multi-platform digital channels to audiences across the world.
Whisper previously delivered content around the national team competitions; this has now been extended to encompass all European club football, including the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League and new UEFA European Conference league, as well as the UEFA Nations League and European and World Cup qualifiers.
A central creative hub, called the UEFA Broadcast Centre, has been installed at Whisper’s HQ in Kew, overseen and managed by Operations lead Bethan Evans, whose experience includes managing broadcast operations and production for ALTEC.
Overseen by Whisper MD Mark Cole, former head of Football at BBC MOTD, and Whisper CEO Sunil Patel, Whisper’s dedicated broadcast production team is led by creative leads Chris Grubb and Richard Horne, who bring 20 years of experience covering football for BBC, ITV, FIFA and UEFA. Chis Wallwork, James Leith and Chris Bridger-Linning lead the editorial content with Kay Satterley as production executive and Katherine Kissane as senior production manager.
The new digital team is embedded within the magazine production team, led by Ian Hodge who brings experience from his time at DAZN and IMG, working closely with Whisper’s wider digital leads, Joe Bennett and Chris Hurst. The team now produces over 90% of the content for UEFA.TV, including best moments, features, goal and player compilations, plus longer form OTT compilations.
The broadcast team have already started delivering stand-out content, including the weekly UEFA Champions League magazine show, the regular UEFA Europe League and UEFA Europe Conference League magazine show, which include expert storytelling and features about the players, coaches and fans in each competition.
Cole said: “We have assembled a team of 40+ with a huge passion for football and a proven track-record in storytelling, who have already started delivering a fantastic range of content to help showcase the wealth of great competitions within the UEFA family.
“Outstanding creativity is part of the Whisper DNA and we are perfectly aligned with UEFA in how to continue to deliver the future of content to huge audiences across the world.”
