Crawley Town Football Club and WAGMI United are pleased to announce a new partnership with The Sidemen – Europe’s largest YouTube collective – ahead of the 2022 Sidemen FC Charity Match on September 24th. Scouts will be on site at the game to assess the participating players who may be looking to recruit new talent to join the team in training and in the dugout for the Red Devils’ forthcoming FA Cup first round game on 5 November .
Since acquiring the club in April, WAGMI United has set out to bring Crawley Town FC to a passionate global community of online fans. True to their commitment to becoming a community club that reaches everyone with an internet connection, WAGMI United and Crawley Town FC are excited about this new partnership with The Sidemen and the opportunity to introduce the club to the collective’s millions of fans.
Preston Johnson, Co-Chairman of Crawley Town Football Club said: “It’s no secret that we want Crawley Town FC to become ‘The Internet’s Team’. And while we usually refer to building a global community of online fans when we use that term, why can’t it also refer to the players we seek and recruit to join our roster? We know this is an unconventional idea, to say the least. But we’ve never been afraid to do things differently and we’re excited to partner with The Sidemen and have the opportunity to explore their charity game to potentially identify a couple of high-profile footballers to join the club ahead of our first FA Cup game .”
The FA’s Statutes state that any player who has officially registered as a member of a club is eligible to be included in the squad and potentially play in FA Cup matches. And while Crawley Town FC remain fully committed to doing whatever it takes to win our first round match, the club also look forward to the opportunity for these new recruits to join our team on a trial basis for training and matchday experience.
Crawley Town Football Club First Team Manager Kevin Betsy said: “When we step onto the field on November 5th our only goal is to win the game and advance to the next round. The FA Cup is a historic competition of incredible importance to our club, our players and our fans and we look forward to doing whatever we can to succeed this season. However, the unique rules of this competition give us an opportunity to try something different, and we look forward to potentially welcoming some new faces to the team. It’s pretty unlikely they’ll come onto the pitch unless the game is already in good hands, but we’re excited to add some fresh blood to our training sessions and in the dugout – and hopefully bring some new fans to the club Process.”
Formed in 2013, The Sidemen consists of best friends Olajide “KSI” Olatunji, Simon “Miniminter” Minter, Joshua “Zerkaa” Bradley, Tobit “TBJZL” Brown, Ethan “Behzinga” Payne and Vikram “Vikkstar123” Barn, all high-profile internet personalities from the UK – with more than 130 million subscribers on YouTube and millions more followers on her various social media channels. The collective has hosted the Sidemen FC Charity Match since 2017, competing on the field against a collection of YouTube All-Stars and donating the proceeds to various charities.
