Merky FC, the Stormzy-Adidas venture trying to increase Black representation off the field

“There are a lot of people, especially now in the football world, who are still asking people to ask that question. ‘Are you sure this isn’t racism within its own space?’.”

As the director of brand communications at Adidas, Steve Marks has heard a lot of conversation around Merky FC. Set up in November 2022, the careers scheme came about as a partnership between the sports brand and the musician Stormzy, intending to “help level the playing field” by looking to find more job roles for young Black people within the football industry. In the 10 months that followed, the partnership helped to find 15 paid roles for Black people aged 16-25.

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A year on, Merky FC’s scheme has returned for phase two, with plans for 50 applicants to take on paid opportunities across a number of Adidas’ industry partners, including Manchester United and Arsenal. But despite the programme’s best efforts to bring more Black people into non-playing roles in football, there are those who question why such a career scheme is necessary.

Marks is clear on that front. “I was at the Leaders in Sport conference the other week and just looking around the room I was like, ‘Wow, if I ever needed an example that lack of representation is a problem…’,” he says.

“It’s a real challenge and I’d say football would benefit from a much more diverse workforce.

“Merky FC is not about ripping things up and saying, ‘Let’s get rid of appointing people from the football industry who are white’. It’s saying, ‘Let’s build this from the bottom up so we can actually start to retain a broader reach of talent’, which is the most important thing.”

Introducing #Merky FC. A project from @adidasfootball & myself. #Merky FC aims to help level the playing field by giving off-pitch opportunities to young Black people in the beautiful game of football.

Join us at to watch our launch.#merkyfc

— Stormzy (@stormzy) November 3, 2022

Merky FC works in a number of stages. Applications to the programme are first considered by a recruitment company called Diverse.

“We have a network of about 6,000 Black and ethnic minority young people that we support with free education,” explains the company’s founder, Tobi Ogundipe. “And then we help them get jobs with some of the top brands and organisations in the world.

“We run the full recruitment process at Merky FC. When candidates are applying to join the programme, my team manages their applications and selects the candidates who we believe have passion and interest in a career in football. They can then apply for individual roles within the programme, at places like Sky Sports and Adidas. From there, we’ll again do the filtering of those applications and then the first-round interview.”

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The goal of Merky FC is to help find work opportunities in football beyond the most obvious roles, looking to place young Black people in jobs spanning club operations and community to creative and marketing. One successful applicant from the scheme’s first phase is Daniel Blunn, a 23-year-old who has spent the past six months working for Fulham as an events coordinator.

Prior to finding a placement with Merky FC, Blunn was working as a receptionist at his local gym. He was considering a career in recruitment before discovering the scheme and pursuing his passion for working in football.

“I’m here initially for a year and then hopefully I can stay longer. It sounds like my manager is really happy with me and I’m happy here, so fingers crossed,” he adds.

“I’ve got a good relationship with my team here and they’ve been really helpful to me since I joined, making sure I don’t feel like ‘just an intern’. I’ve been made to feel like I work for Fulham. I don’t feel like an outsider who’s here through Merky. Everyone here is very welcoming.”

In addition to running the recruitment process, Ogundipe’s team also operate a community hub for Merky FC applicants, giving them further interview advice and industry insight into off-the-pitch job roles available. A driving ethos of the scheme is that, if you can see it, you can be it. There is an attempt to broaden the knowledge of job roles available within the football industry beyond being a player, coach, journalist or broadcaster.

“When the programme started, Stormzy was talking to us at Manchester United and said he’s always seen Geoff Shreeves (who was Sky Sports’ long-serving touchline reporter for over 30 years) and he’s always wondered: how does someone become Geoff Shreeves?” says Blunn. “When he said that, it really resonated with me because I’ve always looked at the pundits and they look like they are having the best time presenting. You look at it and think, ‘I would love to do that, I’d love to talk about football for a living’. But if you had said to me, ‘How do you do that, what steps are you going to take to get into that?’. I’d say I have absolutely no idea where to start.

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“How did you get the experience? How did you get your first foot in the door? And I didn’t have answers for that. And then something like Merky FC comes about and I can’t really talk highly enough about it.”

Merky FC closed its application round for phase two last month and is now approaching its onboarding process, recommending job roles and setting up first-round interviews for its new members. Blunn and others who were part of the first phase also contribute to the community system, passing on advice from their placements.

As an ambitious scheme focused on getting more Black people into football, it unfortunately draws criticism and questions as to why it is so focused on helping one demographic.

“If after six months, Daniel goes, ‘I’m off now, I’m done, I’m gonna go and do computer games’, that’s fine,” says Marks. “But what’s most important is he got a chance to try. We have to get people in the football industry and keep them there if we want to change and improve it.

“I look at the changes that have happened to women’s football over the years. The types of commentators on men’s and women’s football have changed a lot and that took time. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of people who resist that and have been graphic in voicing that, but, over time, people adjust and that change becomes the norm. I think those people who unfortunately still see this as a racist exercise are completely misguided. This is a necessity to the industry to change the facts that are there today in front of us.”

(Top photo: Merky FC/Adidas)