It wasn’t the manner in which England defeated Lithuania that had the nation talking this weekend, but a social video shared by The Football Association in which Jermain Defoe and Bradley Lowrey – a five-year-old Sunderland fan diagnosed with a rare form of terminal cancer – led the national team out at Wembley Stadium.

The social video clip, which has been shared more than 15,000 times and viewed over three million times on Facebook and Twitter, shows stand-in England captain and goalkeeper Joe Hart allow Defoe and Bradley to walk out first ahead of the World Cup Qualifier against group rivals Lithuania.

As a Grabyo partner, the Football Association has built a content strategy that delivers live, near-live and archived video from the England team across its social channels, building audience and engagement around England Internationals and friendly games. With Grabyo, The FA can maximize the amount of video distributed outside its current broadcast rights agreements.

The FA announced a deal in January that would ensure England games would stay on free to air TV led by ITV and Sky Sports. By distributing video to social platforms alongside the broadcast output, The FA has been able to take England fans behind the scenes of the national team and create a relationship with the viewers that extends beyond the 90 minutes.

Content distributed by the FA includes clips from the training ground, changing rooms and exclusive footage from game days to create a complementary experience alongside its linear broadcast coverage. This week, England fans were able to see the moment Michael Keane received his first England jersey from former head coach Glenn Hoddle – this type of access has been previously unavailable to England fans, yet by publishing this to social platforms, The FA can take fans further into the England set up than ever before.

Grabyo is delighted to continue its work the Football Association and to be supporting the English national team.

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