Gemba have collaborated with McDonalds to celebrate the unsung heroes of the beautiful game – grassroots football referees. 

Using real refs of all ages, backgrounds and experience, the Gemba team created charming social videos with the aim of shining a spotlight on the unique characters who are always there, week in week out, to make the game fair. The pieces aim to recognise the efforts that referees put in to ensure that grassroots participants around Australia get to play the game they love, and encourage members of the football community to get behind their officials.

The short videos will feature refs of all shapes and sizes showing us their human side as they practise their moves and show their style for camera. Macca’s has been a proud partner of the FFA since 2017, and see this initiative as part of an ongoing support the world game. 

Boyd Hicklin, Executive Creative Director at Gemba says ‘Referees are a crucial part of the game at whatever level you play. Without a ref, there is no game! So we wanted to take a soft and human approach, showing the football community that referees deserve respect and understanding. They’re all just people, doing the best they can for the love of the game.’

The video content will be amplified through FFA and McDonald channels.