The academy players with more YouTube fans than game's biggest stars

Times

19-07-2025

They are famous footballers with millions of fans, watched live by thousands every week. Some earn big money — well above the national average — and attract sponsorship deals from prestigious international brands. It is not only their skills that are in demand. Holidays, haircuts, homework — it all makes waves, with every detail made public. After all, the aim is not to shut down, but to open up. These are not Premier League stars, but academy footballers, telling the world about their climb to the top.
For a long time, the game's youngsters kept their heads down as they made their way up the ranks. Stuart Pearce had to play in secret for his mates' team as a boy, by adopting a fake name and hiding away as a goalkeeper. Inside training grounds, scrubbing the pros' boots with brushes was about as close as the kids came to stardom.
At Manchester United, under Sir Alex Ferguson in the 1990s, the youth coaches in charge of the Class of '92 had a well-rehearsed riposte for any teenager believed to be getting above their station: 'When you've played 50 league games for the first team,' they said. 'That's when you can consider yourself a player.'
Fifty league games? How about 50,000 subscribers on YouTube, where a swell of academy players are broadcasting their talent, lifestyle and character on camera. Search 'academy footballer' online and swathes of clips can be tapped and scrolled, with titles such as 'Day in the life of an academy footballer' (217,000 views), 'How an academy footballer trains for pre-season' (281,000) and '10 Things an Academy Footballer Can't Live Without' (64,000).
Some accounts are focused on football — matches, sessions, career decisions — but not all. Many also offer invented games and challenges, or lift the lid entirely on their everyday lives, with trips to the barbers or a run-down of what's for breakfast.
Many of these emerging players are hugely popular, while a select few boast followings to rival even the biggest names in the game. Lorenzo Greer, 16, has just been offered a two-year scholarship at Birmingham City, and his 'Tekkerz kid' YouTube channel, which he started aged six, now has 1.7 million subscribers — more than double Jude Bellingham's 896,000 — with his 651 videos attracting more than 492 million views.
Tashall Sandhu, YouTube name 'Tash Baller', has 220,000 subscribers, with videos of him playing for Wolverhampton Wanderers Under-13 and celebrating 100,000 subscribers aged nine. Faran Ahmad, who plays for Leicester City Under-12, uploads near-daily home videos with a total of 7.6 million views. One of Ahmad's most watched videos — 'Come Shop With Me (academy player)' — is of him on a visit to Sports Direct. There are many, many more.
The devotion of kids to a virtual world, at such a young age, will be enough to make many wince. That some accounts were created by parents, with mum or dad behind the camera, will set alarm bells ringing about expectation, exposure and pressure. For those who don't turn professional — and only one in 200 academy players in England do — there is a danger the feeling of failure will be painfully public.
Hugo Scheckter, who has worked in player care at West Ham United and Southampton and whose company, The Player Care Group, has helped more than ten Premier League clubs, believes big social media profiles are 'not needed and not appropriate' for footballers younger than about 15. 'The difficulty comes where it's parents or agents pushing them into it,' Scheckter says.
'They build up the kids as superstars and the kids don't want to let their parents down. It can be ten years of their life where they're footballer, footballer, footballer, when actually they're just child, child, child. Maybe for the elite ones who make it, that might be useful. For the other 99 per cent, it's pretty harmful.'
Clubs are still finding their way too, unsure about how to handle this growing band of players with more videos than appearances. At one of the top Premier League clubs, staff created a cluster of fake accounts, which were designed to follow and interact with the players in order 'to understand them better'. But they cancelled the operation after deciding the 'show pony' impression created by their players' dealings on social media wasn't a fair reflection of their real personalities.
At another club, there have been disagreements over the best approach. One senior figure recalled a meeting when he had to say to colleagues: 'Do we want footballers or influencers?' Another executive admitted their club were still grappling how to respond: 'We understand it's happening, but is pushing back the right thing to do? It's like a parent, it scares the life out of you some of things they do, but do you ban it? Do you cover your eyes and wish it wasn't happening?'
The question is whether that fear is well-founded, given the actual experiences of some of the players. Greer, the 16-year-old Birmingham apprentice with more subscribers than Bellingham, talks confidently on the phone for half an hour. He is so relaxed, you wonder what all the fuss is about.
'It's just fun isn't it?' he says. 'I don't see it as a job, it's something I love to do and it helps me connect with other kids. They can relate to me because I'm still a kid as well.'
He hasn't masked his low moments either. 'The pressure sometimes of having to be perfect… because 90 per cent of the kids I was playing against watched my videos so they wanted to show they were better than me or hurt me on the pitch,' he says. 'I've had bad patches. But I spoke to my dad, spoke to my coaches and my confidence came back. We often spoke about it on YouTube. I'd speak to my dad about it on camera. We shared it with the viewers. The viewers are like our family and they were supportive.'
Greer says his dad, Nathan, launched his YouTube account when he was six, with a video about a new pair of boots, and the two of them have a joint channel called '90+2', where they talk about football together.
'When me and my wife started the channel, it had nothing to do with getting popular or making money, I didn't even know you could monetise a video on YouTube,' Nathan says. 'Daniel Radcliffe was Harry Potter and nobody says to his parents, 'What are you doing?' For some reason when it's social media and football, it's like, 'Is this fair on the kids?' In my case, it's perfectly fair. It's a good balance. It works for us.'
In 2019, Greer was flown out to Turin for a Nike campaign with Cristiano Ronaldo. 'He's had crazy opportunities most boys could only dream of and I'm very proud of him,' Nathan says. 'For this next generation of kids, it's becoming normal. Everyone is a YouTuber now, everyone is famous now and less people will judge people for it.'
Young players also believe influence online gives them a safety net, inside or outside of the game. They talk about the confidence gained from performing regularly on camera and the skills learnt in creating and editing videos. Financially, the more successful academy YouTubers can earn over £40,000 a year for their content, with one agent insisting their teenager had saved enough to buy a house.
Even within football, players released by clubs see their channels as ready-made brochures for their skills and personality, an interactive CV for potential recruiters. Ben Brookes, who was released by West Ham at 13 and has just joined York City, said his YouTube channel, 'Road to Full Time Ball', now with 10.2k subscribers, helped resurrect his career.
'I just thought I'm going to start recording myself,' Brookes told the Beyond Football Podcast. 'As well as helping others on our journey, it also allows us to self-promote. If a manager wants you, it's more about your footballing ability, but if you're a leader, if you're confident, they love stuff like that.'
Many clubs are already encouraging players to branch out. At Brighton & Hove Albion, where they give workshops on social media to players and parents from under-nines and up, Shona Richards from the player care department says trainees have also taken up language, piano and plumbing classes, while Scheckter explains how one footballer he worked with developed an enthusiasm for drawing by joining an oil painting club.
'A lot of them have amazing stories and can be real inspirations,' Richards says. 'We want them to be proud of that, while understanding the risks and getting the balance right.'
For those mature enough, some clubs believe YouTube can be another string to their bow, a very modern way for academy players to expand their portfolio while enjoying an escape from the seriousness of football. In a game often criticised for failing to provide a safe landing ground for discarded youngsters, some kids are taking their own steps, by swapping the boot-cleaning brushes for a ball, tripod and camera.