Samsung Football Ambassadors: From Messi to Thierry Henry

Samsung football ambassadors go back to the 2013 Galaxy 11 campaign led by Messi and Ronaldo. Since then Samsung has signed players market by market, from Zlatan in the Nordics to Son in Korea, and Thierry Henry is now its foldables face in Europe.

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Thierry Henry became Samsung’s newest football face on October 7, fronting the “Welcome to Foldables” campaign for the Galaxy Z Fold8, Fold8 Ultra and Flip8 across Europe, but Samsung has been selling Galaxy devices through footballers for more than a decade. What changes from deal to deal is less the sport than the product, because each signing lines up with whatever Samsung most needed to sell at the time, from the Galaxy Note 3 in 2013 to foldables and smartwatches in the 2020s.

This list covers every Samsung football ambassador deal for Galaxy products that Memeburn could verify through Samsung or trade press, in chronological order. It leaves out club sponsorships such as Samsung’s Chelsea shirt deal and covers rival brands’ football signings in a short section at the end.

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Samsung’s Galaxy 11 campaign launched on November 1, 2013 and built a fictional team of 13 players, captained by Lionel Messi and including Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Iker Casillas, Radamel Falcao, Mario Götze, Oscar and Landon Donovan, to defend Earth from an alien side in a match told through videos, according to BGR. Franz Beckenbauer played the coach, and the campaign promoted the Galaxy Note 3, Galaxy Note 10.1, Galaxy S4 Zoom and the first Galaxy Gear smartwatch in the run-up to the 2014 World Cup.

The Galaxy 11 remains Samsung’s largest football campaign by star count, and it also produced the most famous slip in Samsung’s ambassador history, when Beckenbauer posted the next chapter of the story from an iPhone, according to AppleInsider. It was also the last time Samsung put a global squad of active stars behind its phones, since every later football deal Memeburn found was tied to a single region or market.

Samsung’s Nordic division signed Zlatan Ibrahimović in March 2018, when his announcement video showed him creating an AR Emoji on the Galaxy S9 and signing an autograph with the Galaxy Note 8’s S Pen under the hashtag #DoWhatYouCant. The detail that made headlines was his previous phone, because the Swede was switching from an iPhone, according to SamMobile, which turned the signing into a switching story as much as an endorsement.

Samsung UK signed Raheem Sterling in August 2022 as an ambassador for its foldables on a one-year contract, with the Galaxy Z Fold4 as his hero device and presenter Fearne Cotton fronting the Flip4, according to Marketing Beat. Samsung positioned Sterling around making technology more accessible and promoting social mobility, linked to his foundation’s work with young people, and the deal also covered the Galaxy Buds2 Pro and Galaxy Watch5. It is the earliest football ambassador for a Samsung foldable that Memeburn found, four years before Henry.

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Samsung confirmed Son Heung-min as a Galaxy brand ambassador on July 14, 2023, the same day the Tottenham forward was photographed at Incheon Airport wearing a Galaxy Watch6 nearly two weeks before Samsung officially unveiled it, according to KED Global. Samsung did not say whether the role was global or limited to South Korea, and it disclosed no contract terms, but the timing tied one of Asia’s best-known footballers to a wearable launch rather than a phone.

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Samsung’s Middle East and North Africa division named Paris Saint-Germain and Morocco defender Achraf Hakimi its Galaxy brand ambassador on December 18, 2024, alongside a campaign called “The Next Big Thing Is You”, according to Follow ICT. The launch material focused on the Galaxy Watch Ultra’s health and fitness tracking and on Galaxy AI, which again put a footballer in front of wearables, where an athlete’s credibility carries more weight than it does for a phone camera.

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Thierry Henry first joined Samsung in April 2026 for a pan-European TV campaign marking 20 years as the world’s top TV brand, according to Samsung’s April announcement, and moved to phones on October 7 with “Welcome to Foldables”, where he uses the Fold8 Ultra for multitasking, the Fold8 for watching football and the Flip8 for selfies, according to Samsung’s October announcement. He is the only retired player on this list and the only one Samsung has moved between product categories, which makes him less a sports endorser than a European brand face.

Three patterns stand out across these deals. Samsung abandoned the global football squad after the Galaxy 11 and has since signed players market by market, choosing the star with the most local pull, such as Ibrahimović in the Nordics, Son in Korea and Hakimi across North Africa. The products have also shifted from flagship phones toward foldables and watches, the categories where Samsung needs to persuade newcomers rather than sell to existing Galaxy owners. And the authenticity question keeps returning, from Beckenbauer’s iPhone tweet to Ibrahimović’s switch, which is why Henry’s claim that he has used Samsung for a very long time is the line viewers are most likely to doubt.

Rival phone makers have used football in the same way, though often with one global face. Huawei named Robert Lewandowski an ambassador in November 2015 and Lionel Messi a global ambassador in March 2016, two years after Messi captained Samsung’s Galaxy 11, while Oppo signed Lamine Yamal as a global ambassador in January 2025 at 17, according to GSMArena. Samsung’s regional approach costs it a single global hero, but it lets each market pick a player who means something locally, which matters more for a Galaxy lineup that sells across very different price points.

Samsung’s Galaxy football ambassadors include the 2013 to 2014 Galaxy 11 squad led by Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, Zlatan Ibrahimović (Nordics, 2018), Raheem Sterling (UK, 2022), Son Heung-min (2023), Achraf Hakimi (Middle East and North Africa, 2024) and Thierry Henry (Europe, 2026).

Lionel Messi captained Samsung’s Galaxy 11 campaign in 2013 and 2014, which promoted the Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy Gear, and later became a global ambassador for Huawei in 2016.

Thierry Henry is Samsung’s football face in Europe, fronting the Galaxy Z Fold8, Fold8 Ultra and Flip8 in the “Welcome to Foldables” campaign announced on October 7, 2026.

Marko is a tech journalist covering AI, consumer technology, crypto, and digital innovation. His work focuses on clear, accessible reporting that helps readers understand how new technologies are shaping business, finance, and everyday life.