Crawley Town: Club to scout celebrities at charity match
- Published
Chunkz is set to be scouted by Crawley, for whom Mark Wright once played
Crawley Town will scout celebrities at a charity football match with a view to adding them to their squad.
The Red Devils have joined forces with YouTube collective The Sidemen, who are hosting a sold-out match at The Valley.
Big names from the world of social media will face off at the home of Charlton Athletic on Saturday.
"We know this is an unconventional idea. But we've never been shy about doing things differently," co-chairman Preston Johnson said.
Since taking over the League Two club in April, WAGMI United have sought to make Crawley "the internet's team".
Anyone they do sign could appear on the bench for Crawley in their FA Cup first-round match in November.
"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," Johnson added to the club website., external
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 have more than 130 million combined subscribers on YouTube and millions more followers on their 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 proceeds to charity.
Among the stars set to take part this year are Logan Paul, LazarBeam and AnEsonGib while TikTokker Noah Beck and Chunkz, who both appeared at Soccer Aid, are also set to feature.
"When we step on the pitch our only goal is to win the match and advance to the next round," Town boss Kevin Betsy said.
"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."