Football clubs have joined the Christmas advert race, and Arsenal’s festive film, narrated by Oscar winner Colin Firth, is already being talked about as a front-runner.
The club’s 2026 campaign, “Twas the Season”, is a short film in which Firth, a lifelong Arsenal supporter, walks through Islington, the club’s north London home, drawing on the spirit of films such as Love Actually and Fever Pitch. It features players including Gabriel, Riccardo Calafiori and Alessia Russo, and sets the scene for the club’s Christmas plans.
Fans loved it on social media, praising its warmth and its local flavour, a deliberate contrast with the big-budget department store adverts that usually dominate the festive season.
Arsenal are not alone. Liverpool have also released a festive film this season, and supporters of both clubs have been comparing the two clubs’ efforts favourably with John Lewis’s Christmas advert, the traditional benchmark of the genre.
The clubs’ entries say something about how football clubs now see themselves: not just as sports teams, but as entertainment brands that compete for attention in the same seasonal market as retailers, streaming services and fashion houses.
Whether either film will be remembered when the decorations come down is another matter. But for now, the Gunners, and the Reds, have given their fans something to smile about before a ball is kicked.
Sources: Arsenal FC; The Sun; Metro.
