American superstar rapper 50 Cent has sponsored an under-14s football team in Cardiff.
Welsh football is no stranger to some celebrity stardust after Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney bought Wrexham AFC in 2020.
Now the hip hop artist has got in on the action, sponsoring Rumney AFC’s under-14s girls team.
The unlikely sponsor emerged after a parent of one of the players was working with the rapper while he was on tour.
Richie Brown is head of the girls section and coach of the under-14s and under-17s girls teams at the Cardiff-based club.
He told Sky News he expected the answer “to be a no” and was surprised when 50 Cent agreed.
“You expect it to be a ‘no’ and then when he says ‘yes’ it’s a huge surprise and then you’re massively grateful straight away,” he said.
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“I’ve been involved in girls’ football for almost 10 years now so I’m promoting it this side, trying to do the best I possibly can, and when you’ve got someone as high profile a name as him, you just know he’s going to take it to the next level.”
Having agreed to sponsor the team’s away kit, he was only too happy to agree to a follow-up request.
“Once we’d got that away kit, the money was sent over, we paid for it all, ordered it all, got it delivered, we’d asked him then if he would be happy to go for tracksuits for the team as well, which again he agreed and we kind of went through the same process for the tracksuits then,” Mr Brown added.
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The football coach said the community of Wrexham was “really happy and buzzing” after its club was bought by its Hollywood owners and he hopes Rumney will also feel some of that excitement from their new sponsor.
“Hopefully the girls’ and women’s sections down in South Wales will get a little bit of spotlight and we can raise the profile,” he added.
