In honor of Black History Month, BCOMS and the Chelsea Foundation came together for the “Changing Face of Football Fandom in Content Creation” – an event to celebrate black content creators working across football.
Chelsea have made a commitment to champion diversity through their No To Hate campaign and for this event they wanted to celebrate diverse content creators to highlight under-represented content creatives.
Our event at Stamford Bridge took place in the Paul Canoville suite, with Paul Canoville himself in attendance. We brought together a group of burgeoning creators, club representatives and partners for an evening of panel discussions and networking.
The evening was co-hosted by BCOMS alumni Mayowa Quadri (brand and editorial officer at Versus) and Anita Abayomi (co-founder and host of Goal Diggers podcast).
Mayowa and Anita hosted three different panel talks discussing the journeys of our panelists and how to find, create your own path and create content.
Our speakers and panelists included;
– Capo Lee, musical artist and youth project manager
– Felicia Pennant, award-winning journalist, editor and creative consultant. Founder and editor-in-chief at SEASON zine.
– Kelvyn Quagraine, head of brand at Art of Football, board member at Youth Beyond Borders and creative director at The Blackbeat.
– Moses Duckrell, freelance creator and director at Copa90.
– Eniola Aluko, Chelsea legend and football pundit.
Zem Clarke was also in attendance to launch her art work and poster celebrating 41 black players who have made their mark on Chelsea history since Paul Conoville who was the fist black player to make his Chelsea debut.
We also heard from Um-E-Ayman Babar and Brian Matovu, they recipients of the Chelsea Foundation and BCOMS Journalist Bursary Programme who shared how the bursary has propelled their careers. At the end of the event Mayowa Quadri announced the launch of the Blue Creator in partnership with Versus.
We ended the evening at Stamford Bridge with networking, drinks, sharing of ideas and a big BCOMS family photo to mark the fact that over 60 BCOMS alumni and current members were at the event.
