Cornwall Artist Diane Griffiths Shortlisted for the Football Art Prize 2026

There’s a quiet kind of football that doesn’t make the highlights reel. The evening training session under floodlights. The local pitch where the game carries on long after the light has gone, framed by houses and trees, played not for glory but simply because it always has been. That’s the football a Cornwall-based artist has captured, and it’s now heading to a major national exhibition.

Diane Griffiths has been shortlisted for the Football Art Prize 2026 with her painting ‘As Long as the Lights Are On’.

Chosen from 900 entries worldwide

The work was selected from around 900 international entries, with over 70 pieces chosen for exhibition. It goes on display at Sheffield’s Millennium Gallery from 11th June 2026, the opening day of the FIFA World Cup, before travelling to the National Football Museum in Manchester later in the year.

Diane’s painting explores the quieter side of football culture. Evening training sessions and local pitches continuing under floodlights as the night closes in. The game continues not for spectacle, but because it always has. Football played for as long as the lights are on.

The image was inspired by a photograph taken by her dad at Stafford Rangers FC, near where she grew up in Penkridge.

A heavyweight judging panel

The shortlist was selected by a panel that includes some serious names from the worlds of art and sport. Tim Marlow OBE, Chief Executive and Director of the Design Museum in London, chaired the selection panel. He has previously served as Artistic Director of the Royal Academy of Arts and Director of White Cube.

Also on the panel were artist and writer Harland Miller, whose large-scale paintings rework the iconography of Penguin paperback covers, and Jessica Naz, the professional footballer for Tottenham Hotspur Women and England. Artist and designer Emmely Elgersma, curators from the exhibition’s host venues, and a senior curator from founding partner Touchstones Rochdale completed the line-up.

On the prize, Tim 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.”

Football as art

The shortlisted works span painting, photography, drawing, printmaking, film and mixed media, with artists from 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 a prize-giving ceremony on 10th June, the day before the exhibition opens, to mark the start of the World Cup. A First Prize of £5,000 and a Second Prize of £2,000 are up for grabs.

The exhibition runs at the Millennium Gallery in Sheffield from 11th June to 13th September 2026, before moving to the National Football Museum in Manchester from November 2026 to February 2027.