Rising Ballers: Inside Gen Z football brand that showcased Jadon Sancho and Phil Foden

Brendon Shabani grew up dreaming of becoming a professional footballer just like millions of other kids.

But even though he signed a pro deal on his 17th birthday and went on to play in the Football League, founding Rising Ballers surpasses it all.

Shabani's story started near Walthamstow in east London. Like most children, football was Shabani's obsession but he was rejected by QPR at the age of 10. He would bounce back by linking up with Leyton Orient a year later, where he eventually progressed through the club's academy ranks before leaving the O's in the summer of 2021.

Rising Ballers, a Gen Z football brand which showcases and champions some of the world's top up and coming stars, was born at a time when Shabani himself was touted as a football prodigy. He wanted to give exposure to the next generation of stars and came up with the idea for the brand as a 14-year-old alongside his brother, Eni, after undergoing surgery on a knee injury.

He tells Mirror Football: "I was sitting in Nandos with my older brother and we were just sitting there and I was like, 'For f*** sake, I've done my meniscus again'. Like, what is going on here? What should I do now, because I've got so much time on my hands.

"Obviously, I'm doing okay at school, but I don't really care about it: I want to be a footballer. And we were just talking about things we could do and we spoke about Jamal Edwards, who founded SBTV at the time. He was pushing young rappers, putting them on the scene and giving them an opportunity and it just hit us, 'Why not do that with footballers?'"

The brothers were - and continue to be - ahead of the curve. Jadon Sancho was the first player featured on their social media channels shortly after he joined Manchester City from Watford as a teenager. His clips quickly went viral and the brand's growth has been nothing short of seismic since.

The brainchild of the brothers has gone on to amass over 2.4million followers on Instagram alone and, just as they envisioned, now provides a platform for scores of footballing prodigies. The brothers approached Jamie Pollitt, who ran a rival blog, shortly after launching to join them and eventually all went full-time.

Rising Ballers now employ a number of people and reach over 90 million people with their content every month across a variety of platforms. They have showcased countless players who have gone on to make it big over the years, including some from the Premier League and a number of stars who competed in Euro 2024 or the Copa America this summer. The majority stay in touch and some continue to work with Rising Ballers.

"Phil Foden, Mason Mount, Callum Hudson-Odoi, all those boys from the Golden Generation hit us up [after the Sancho clips] and said, post me, post me, post me, post me, post me. And honestly, we grew so quick because nobody was doing it.

"Someone like Phil Foden has grown up on Rising Ballers: we've seen him on his journey from a 16 year old to a 23, 24 year old. They know that we've played a massive part in their journey on the social side of things. Most players still chat to us and we still work with some of them. We showed them love when nobody else did."

Over time, Rising Ballers' horizons have broadened. They've gone from showcasing talented young footballers to trying to offer a holistic view of the industry and, in some cases, support. Shabani knows better than most of the trials and tribulations that come with the territory from his own career.

Like countless others, Shabani was tipped for greatness as a teenager. He ended up departing Leyton Orient after making just a handful of appearances, though, and his time in east London was impacted by significant off-field events. After a spell in non-league, Shabani, now 22, made the decision to focus on his business endeavours rather than football. Hanging up his boots wasn't easy, but it has paid dividends.

"Transitioning into what I'm doing now, you have to drop your ego massively: I had to leave my ego at the door, I had to understand what position I was in and what I was doing. And I think over time for me, I just thought, 'OK, I'm not going to be a footballer'. I accept that. And I have to be real with myself. It's not happened for me in the same way that it's not for hundreds of thousands of kids out there.

"But I look at myself now as someone who's important in the industry, because I look at people who get released and because I've gone through that, I can speak to them about that. I understand. We don't hide away from the fact that not everyone is going to make it."

It's hard to put a price on how valuable Shabani's drive to articulate the darker side of football to the next generation of highly-touted young stars is.

Shabani received just two text messages following his release from Leyton Orient and his own experiences fuel Rising Ballers' attempts to offer support and opportunities for youngsters outside of playing football. They offer work experience and, at the time of speaking, had two teenagers in their brand new office to underline that playing professionally doesn't have to the be-all and end-all.

While Shabani references the work done by the Professional Footballers Association (PFA) in supporting young players who cannot achieve their dreams, he feels the industry still has more to do if all of those affected are to be catered for.

He explains: "Football could be a great stepping stone for lots of different things in life. You learn so much from the game, whether that's leadership, communication or friendships that you can take with you even if football doesn't work out. And people need to hear about it and understand that.

"If you don't make it as a footballer, it is not the worst thing in the world. We speak openly about rejection and how brutal the game is because we don't want to paint the perfect picture for a young kid coming through. At the end of the day, that's not the reality.

"If we can continue to help them [by paining an honest picture] or even just open their eyes out and expose them to what else you could be doing in football then it feels like we're doing something rather than nothing. We want to play our part."

Shabani considers himself among the lucky few, even if he didn't achieve all the things he set out to as a teenager with a dream kicking a ball in Walthamstow all those years ago.

For him, there's no dwelling over what could have been. Were it not for the tumultuous circumstances that played out at Leyton Orient in the years leading up to his release, things could have played out very differently. But there is no bitterness. There are no regrets.

"I value football so much. What we always say is the beauty in what we do is everyone's shelf life is different and people last on socials for as long as they can last. And there's always a new kid on the block. But with us, it always feels like there's going to be a next Jadon Sancho coming through. And that is so exciting to talk about.

"In the last six or seven years, the journey's been amazing. I can't hate the game because it's given me something that's priceless."

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