Arsenal fan Idris Elba coming into world of soccer with new ‘Rukkas FC’ enterprise
After spending decades in the stands supporting his favourite team Arsenal, actor Idris Elba has decided to go into the football game himself as he sets up his own training academy
Lifelong Arsenal fan Idris Elba is going into the world of football with his own training academy. And the Luther legend wants to call the venture Rukkas FC.
The actor, DJ, cosmetics firm boss and wine bar owner is in a league of his own when it comes to business ideas. And he now wants to add his own soccer squad.
He has just applied to the government’s Intellectual Property Office to trademark the name via is IE7 Ltd firm. The company’s main aim will be to set up a training academy for football, but other events such as coaching and friendlies are also due to be organised.
Documents registering the business state that the club will take on the job of organising competitions and football events, as well as helping to offer coaching to people in both football and other sports. Among the various roles the company will take on are the “organisation of sports events in the field of football, football academy services, coaching in the field of sports,” and others.
As well as this, Rukkas FC will be used to also help to train clients in fantasy football leagues, as well as refereeing and even tutoring the theory of sports. The company is also looking to tap into the media market, according to its documents, with the “provision of entertainment services through the media of television” and “publication of texts in the form of electronic media” key goals for the business.
He also wants to use the name to market clothes and football kit. The London-born actor has been an Arsenal fan for most of his life, describing the Arsenal shirt as a powerful “superhero thing” for him as a child.
Hollywood star Idris has made no secret that he has been an Arsenal fan all his life and has even gone as far as to defend the club from a group of youth hooligans when he was a child. Even at the age of 12, actor Idris was a fan of the Gunners through and through, even after his family moved to from Hackney to Canning Town, firmly within West Ham territory.
Now in his 50s, the star said that he would often stand up with fearlessness and determination by wearing an Arsenal shirt on the school that he was gifted by his loved ones. As it later turned out, he was often “terrorised” by a group of yobs on the bus for the sheer act of wearing a rival club’s shirt.
However, he had no problems with the fact of standing up to the lads, admitting it made him feel “powerful” to be himself and cause so many problems. “I was like ‘yeah’, I was a big kid for 12 so I can hold my own you know what I mean, so the Arsenal shirt became my sort of superhero in a sea of purple and burgundy and blue, there was my shirt on the bus home,” he recalled on the Peter Crouch podcast.
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