Chelsea Giving London Kids a Head Start in Business

Fri, 2nd May 2008
Chelsea Football Club has teamed up with former Nottingham Forest, Arsenal and England forward Tony Woodcock to launch a scheme designed to encourage young people to go on to university and give them a head start in business.

Tsu'Chu Biz is a four-day course designed for 14 to 19-year-olds which uses football as the teacher.

The course, which has been successfully running for 18 months across the UK, is a unique collaboration between football, business and universities. To expand the project into the capital the group have developed a Tsu'Chu Biz London Olympics Enterprise Initiative.

The launch course, for 25 youngsters, took place at Greenwich University on Thursday and will culminate in a Business Plan Competition for the best business start-up.

Former Chelsea legend Graeme Le Saux was joined by a distinguished panel of successful business people acting as judges of the competition, handing out prizes to the successful students.

He said: 'An example would be designing, selling and merchandising a football boot. Now normally I wouldn't be particularly interested in doing something like that but if you relate it to football or to a sport that people are interested in then you are capturing the imagination of the young people.'

The winning team was called Swan Time - One Time and they had designed and made shopping bags that are eco friendly, aiming to decrease the amount of plastic used by half by 2012. They are having talks with Marks and Spencer next week about stocking the bags.

Other teams included Chinaman With Sunglasses who made t-shirts with such a logo, Blinkage Boys (bespoke medallions), Chu Lee Sports (a badminton training centre), Puppy Dog Creations (logos for companies), East-End-Elite (junior kick boxing courses) for 8-14 year olds, I C Boxers (boxer shorts).

The project takes its name from Tsu'Chu which is the ancient Chinese form of football from around 250 BCE that is widely recognised as being the start of the global game.

Essentially the course is a mini MBA for young people from disadvantaged areas. It is hoped this will be the first of 40 courses being offered to 1000 14 to 19-year-olds from within the five Olympics host boroughs.

The intention is to encourage young people to be creative, enterprising and entrepreneurial, work at what they love and have a talent for as well as developing their personal and social skills.

Chelsea will also be providing match tickets, shirts and various prizes for the youngsters

Chief executive Peter Kenyon said: 'We have a long and proud history of engagement with our community. The course is an ideal combination of the sporting, business and community elements of our club as well as furthering our partnerships with other institutions, agencies and businesses across London.'

Tony Woodcock added: 'Tsu-Chu Biz is a fantastic course that is helping youngsters to realise their potential and help them move onto further and higher education. I am delighted that Chelsea Football Club has agreed to partner with us on this exciting project which highlights Chelsea as an entrepreneurial football club supporting entrepreneurial young people.'