Crawley Town Football Club and WAGMI United are delighted to announce a new partnership with The Sidemen — Europe’s largest YouTube collective — ahead of the 2022 Sidemen FC Charity Match on September 24. Scouts will be on hand at the match to evaluate participating players, potentially looking to recruit new talent to join the team in training and in the dugout for the Red Devils’ upcoming FA Cup first-round match on 5 November.
Since taking over the club in April, WAGMI United have set about bringing Crawley Town FC to a passionate global community of online fans. True to those aspirations of becoming a community club that reaches anyone 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’re normally referring to growing a global community of online fans when we use that term, why can’t it also refer to the players we scout and recruit to join our squad? We know this is an unconventional idea, to say the least. But we’ve never been shy about doing things differently, and we’re excited about partnering with The Sidemen and the opportunity to scout their charity match to potentially identify a couple of quality footballers who can join the club ahead of our first FA Cup match.”
The FA’s bylaws dictate that any player who has formally registered as part of a club is eligible to be named to the squad and potentially compete in FA Cup matches. And while Crawley Town FC remains fully committed to doing everything necessary to win our first-round match, the club also looks forward to the possibility of these new recruits joining our team on a trial basis for training and the matchday experience.
Kevin Betsy, First Team Manager of Crawley Town Football Club, said, “When we step on the pitch on 5 November, our only goal is to win the match and advance to the next round. The FA Cup is a historic competition that is incredibly meaningful to our club, our players and our fans, and we’re looking forward to doing everything we can to make a deep run this season. However, the unique rules of this competition give us a chance to try something different, and we’re looking forward to potentially welcoming some new faces to the team. It’s fairly unlikely that they’ll get on the pitch unless the game is already well in hand, 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 in the process.”
Started in 2013 and consisting of best friends Olajide "KSI" Olatunji, Simon "Miniminter" Minter, Joshua "Zerkaa" Bradley, Tobit "TBJZL" Brown, Ethan "Behzinga" Payne and Vikram "Vikkstar123" Barn, The Sidemen are among the most high-profile internet personalities from the United Kingdom — with more than 130 million combined subscribers on YouTube and millions more followers on their various social media channels. The collective have hosted the Sidemen FC Charity Match since 2017, in which they take on a collection of YouTube All-Stars on the pitch and donate the proceeds to a variety of charitable organizations.
