"Yes Boys"

28 May 2026

60s

From Boys to Men

EE’s World Cup campaign, 'Yes Boys', is a direct response to the growing wave of negative influences that young boys increasingly encounter online. Social media algorithms, amplified by high-profile personalities, are helping to spread and normalise toxic ideologies, often surfacing unprompted in young users’ feeds. It’s a troubling trend with even more troubling consequences.

This is where football’s unique power comes into play. Both on and off the pitch, the sport has the ability to nurture, unite, and support young people. It offers boys a positive alternative - helping to build self-confidence, providing credible role models, and creating safe, peer-led environments where conversations about what real masculinity is can take place.

The campaign’s messaging is clear and purposeful, immediately signalling its target audience. It opens by reflecting the kind of content boys are exposed to: young players scrolling through their phones, confronted by exaggerated, hyper-masculine figures delivering harmful rhetoric. This quickly transitions into a more hopeful narrative, coaches and teammates reinforcing positive, empowering messages that encourage boys to succeed both on and off the pitch.

UK

Mobile Phone Networks