- Clash of Clans has enlisted football legends Thierry Henry, Kaká, and Bastian Schweinsteiger to headline a campaign marking the return of Global Chat, the game's most-requested feature, live from June 17, 2026.
- The cinematic launch film takes a sports-documentary tone, with the trio reflecting on winning, before the camera reveals they're now playing with their hands, not their feet, positioning Clash of Clans as the new competitive arena.
- Coinciding with the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Supercell is also running a football-themed in-game event featuring a special Clan War League for millions of players worldwide.
- This marks the first partnership between all three players and Clash of Clans; the brand previously partnered with Erling Haaland in 2024 and Travis Hunter in 2025.
Clash of Clans has teamed up with football legends Thierry Henry, Kaká, and Bastian Schweinsteiger to launch a football-themed campaign marking the return of Global Chat, the game’s most-requested community feature.
The revamped Global Chat gives millions of players worldwide a new in-game platform to find their perfect clan and discuss winning tactics and strategies, visible from June 17th.
To mark the moment, the three icons appear in a cinematic, documentary-style launch film, styled like a high-end sports feature, where they reflect on competition and control, before the camera reveals they’re playing with their hands, not their feet.
The campaign is Clash of Clans’ first partnership with all three footballers. The game, published by Finnish studio Supercell, made its first-ever real-person collaboration in May 2024 with Erling Haaland in the award-winning “Clash with Haaland” campaign, which amassed over 150 million views across platforms.
In 2025, Clash of Clans followed up with NFL rookie Travis Hunter in what it called the game’s first-ever two-way deal.
For Henry, this is his second active brand campaign in as many months. He recently fronted a Samsung TV campaign timed to the 2026 FIFA World Cup build-up across Europe. He also features on the McDonald’s FIFA World Cup 2026 collectible cup campaign alongside Ronaldinho and David Beckham. In December 2025, Henry also joined Fox Sports as a studio analyst for 2026 FIFA World Cup coverage.
Schweinsteiger, World Cup winner with Germany in 2014, has been active as a pundit commentating on the 2026 World Cup. Kaká, the 2005 Ballon d’Or winner and Champions League winner with AC Milan, remains one of the most globally recognized Brazilian footballers in brand and media circles.
The campaign is further anchored by a football-themed in-game event where players can take part in a special Clan War League, coinciding with the race for football’s biggest prize.
It’s a playbook Supercell is running across its entire game portfolio, as seen when Joe Jonas partnered with sister game Hay Day on an in-game music campaign.
Takeaways
This campaign is a well-timed double win for Supercell. Returning Global Chat, a feature the community has been asking for, and wrapping it in a World Cup-adjacent celebrity campaign gives them both a product story and a cultural moment at exactly the right time.
The creative direction is smart: rather than putting these legends in suits or making them act like gamers, the film meets them where they live, in the punditry and analysis world they now inhabit, and draws a natural line between tactical thinking on a pitch and tactical thinking in-game. It doesn’t feel forced.
It also shows Clash of Clans’ growing sophistication in celebrity marketing. They’ve graduated from one-off stunts (Liam Neeson in 2015) to fully integrated campaigns built around cultural moments.
Haaland had a playable character. Hunter had a two-way deal mechanic. Now Henry, Kaká, and Schweinsteiger have the pundit-to-player narrative. Each campaign has a concept, not just a face.
For the three players, this adds meaningful brand equity in the gaming space, a segment most football legends haven’t meaningfully entered. That’s an untapped audience of hundreds of millions.
Does casting retired pundits, rather than active players, give Clash of Clans more creative freedom to build a storytelling campaign? With Supercell running major celebrity campaigns across both Clash of Clans and Hay Day simultaneously, is the company building toward becoming one of gaming’s most aggressive celebrity marketing machines?
