Stormzy‘s Merky FC is working with Premier League clubs Fulham and Manchester United to get more people of different backgrounds involved in football.
A survey commissioned by Adidas and the FARE (Football Against Racism in Europe) Network that indicated only 6.7% of senior football roles are held by individuals who identify as having black or mixed-race origin led to the announcement of the initiative.
“That statistic is embarrassing,” the rapper from Croydon who will be launching the program next year remarked.
“As part of my broader commitment to help racial equality in the UK, we want to inspire meaningful change within this field through the Merky FC initiative.”
The announcement comes soon after Patrick Vieira questioned how little has changed over the years in terms of minority representation off the field in football when speaking to CNN.
In spite of the fact that 43% of players in England are black, just 14% of coaches with the highest coaching degrees are black, according to the Szymanski Report, which was commissioned by the Black Footballers Partnership (BFP) earlier this year.
With Merky FC, teams and organizations like Adidas and Sky Sports will collaborate to offer black people between the ages of 18 and 24 multi-year, paid professional possibilities in the football industry.
The rapper Stormzy remarked, “If you can see that representation on the field with all the players, then it should at least be supported by people in positions of power, positions of influence outside of being an actual footballer.”
“We’re hoping to bring about a shift with what we’re doing.”
Stormzy has worked before to get more people of color into a certain industry.
With his Merky Foundation and Merky Books, which work with Penguin Random House publishers, he has helped make sure that underrepresented voices are heard in the publishing world.
The rapper has also given scholarships to some students in order to get more black people to go to Cambridge University.
Adidas, a company that has previously collaborated with Stormzy, said: “We are proud to be working in partnership with Stormzy to introduce Merky FC, an initiative that directly tackles some of the biggest barriers facing UK youth in football today by creating a legacy of career opportunities of the pitch alongside the other partners.”
