The Football Art Prize has announced its 2026 shortlist, selecting over 60 works from 900 entries by artists around the world.
This prestigious competition invites artists to explore the passion, drama, and unity that football inspires across the globe.
The 2026 Prize exhibition will see the shortlisted works go on display at Sheffield’s Millennium Gallery from June 11, 2026, the first day of the FIFA World Cup.
The shortlisted works have been selected by panellists including Design Museum Head Tim Marlow OBE, Artist Harland Miller, footballer Jessica Naz and artist Emmely Elgersma.
Tim Marlow OBE, Chair of the selection panel and Director of the Design Museum said: “People often talk about artistry on the pitch… Well, there’s plenty of it off the pitch too, inspired by the beautiful game. One of the joys of football matches is the collective, physical experience, so here’s hoping many come and visit the exhibition of selected artworks.”
The shortlisted works span painting, photography, drawing, printmaking, film and mixed media, and come from artists as far afield as Bangladesh, Jamaica, Greenland, Colombia, India and the Netherlands. Together they make a case for football as one of the richest subjects in contemporary art, carrying questions of identity, class, memory, gender, disability and belonging.
Awards totalling £7,000 will be presented at the prize-giving on 10 June: a First Prize of £5,000 and Second Prize of £2,000.
The shortlisted works include:
Karl Bielik (London) has painted directly onto his old Leeds United shirt, recording the score of a 1974 European Cup tie his father, a Hungarian refugee who fled Budapest during the 1956 Uprising, took him to as a seven-year-old. The numbers in the painting mark both events simultaneously.
Jakob Seckinger (Karlsruhe, Germany) renders Zidane’s headbutt in the 2006 World Cup final as the distorted anamorphic skull from Hans Holbein’s The Ambassadors (1533), drawing a line between football’s fleeting, gladiatorial moments and one of art history’s great meditations on mortality.
Esteban Peña Parga (Lincoln) recreates the iconic photograph of the instant before Andrés Escobar’s fatal own goal in the 1994 World Cup, painstakingly assembled from shredded eraser on a black background, then filmed being swept away. The work exists only as a video recording.
Conor Rogers (Sheffield) has been making paintings directly onto betting slips since 2019, a sustained investigation into class, ritual, masculinity and the cultures that form around gambling and football in Britain. Four works from the series are included in the shortlist.
Stephen Hill (Sheffield) has made a work that, viewed from one side, reads as the stripes of Sheffield United, and from the other as the colours of Sheffield Wednesday. Only from directly in front does the full picture become clear.
Lekan Rabiu (London) has made a charcoal and pencil portrait of his childhood friend Ebere Eze, with whom he once shared the dream of becoming a professional footballer. Rabiu played at Rochdale AFC’s youth team; Eze reached the top of the game. The work is part of an ongoing series celebrating people Rabiu knows personally who have excelled in their field.
Amy Lee-Julian (Liskeard, Cornwall) offers a self-portrait set within a powerchair football match, using sport as a platform to challenge perceptions of disability and argue for greater inclusion and visibility. The artist describes it as an assertion of her role as an active player rather than an observer.
Howard Milton (London) has painted the Brentford Penguins, a football club for children with Down Syndrome, all of whom wear the number 21, a reference to the chromosomal condition they share. The club meets every Sunday, coached by former Brentford and QPR professional Allan Cockram.
Roman Manfredi (London) contributes four silver gelatin prints from his ongoing series Fair Play, documenting Clapton Community FC’s women and non-binary teams. Clapton CFC are east London’s 100% fan-owned club, unique in operating with no hierarchy between their men’s and women’s sides.
The Football Art Prize 2026 shortlist was selected by a judging panel including:
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Tim Marlow OBE: Chief Executive and Director of the Design Museum, London. A prominent figure in the UK’s art world, he has previously served as Artistic Director of the Royal Academy of Arts and Director of White Cube.
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Harland Miller: An artist and writer whose large-scale paintings rework the iconography of Penguin paperback covers to explore themes of mortality, failure and dark humour. His work is held in major collections internationally.
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Jessica Naz: Professional footballer for Tottenham Hotspur Women and England, bringing the perspective of an active player to a prize that sits at the intersection of sport and culture.
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Emmely Elgersma: Artist and designer whose practice spans painting, illustration and visual communication.
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Sarah Hodgkinson: Senior Curator at Touchstones Rochdale, one of the Football Art Prize’s founding partners.
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Alison Morton: Head of Exhibitions at Sheffield Museums, who present the exhibition at the Millennium Gallery, opening in June
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Marek Romaniszyn: Curator at the National Football Museum, Manchester, the exhibition’s second touring venue.
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Millennium Gallery, Sheffield: June 11 – 13 September, 2026.
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National Football Museum, Manchester: November 2026 to February 2027.
