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24-484: The F2Freestylers , also known as The F2 , are a British freestyle football duo comprising former amateur footballers Billy Wingrove and Jeremy Lynch. They are best known for their YouTube channel which has over 14 million subscribers. Wingrove and Lynch have been described as "teenage rejects", having been rejected by the academies of professional football clubs in their youths before finding success as influencers and YouTube freestyle footballers. Wingrove comes from

48-553: A Nike commercial featuring Edgar Davids and Denílson de Oliveira . He featured in the 2007 documentary film In the Hands of the Gods , and reached the semi-finals of Britain's Got Talent in 2008. Eventually, Wingrove and Lynch decided to commit to making a career in freestyle football as a duo, realising they would have more success as a marketable pairing than attempting to pursuing careers as professional footballers. Together,

72-431: A following of over 11.3 million users. Wingrove and Lynch have authored the following books published by Bonnier Books Ltd: Freestyle football The art of freestyle football can be traced to games of Southeast Asia such as chinlone , jianzi and sepak takraw , which have been practised for 2,000 years. Fundamental freestyle tricks such as the 'Neck Stall' and 'Around The World' were first popularly performed in

96-580: A football entertainer. He established Guinness world records and performed at the 1988 Summer Olympics opening ceremony , and the FIFA World Cups in 1990 and 1994. Soufiane Touzani from the Netherlands introduced a new style of lower tricks, which were popularized through viral videos . Footballer Sandy Levittas ( a.k.a. Bambiball) was among the first women to share videos of her freestyle skills, which inspired more girls to take up

120-554: A football management agency, F2 Talent, despite neither being a licensed intermediary with the FA . The agency courted controversy over the use of a photo publicising a newly signed young player, violating the FA's policy to not promote players under the age of 15. Also in 2018, the duo founded F2 Revolution, an agency aimed at recruiting 'social talent'. Lynch signed a short-term semi-professional contract with Billericay Town in 2017, playing in

144-445: A footballing career, playing at youth level for Enfield Town and then semi-professionally for Ware from 2004 until 2009. Wingrove was the first professional freestyle footballer to sign for a Premier League club, signing for Tottenham Hotspur—who had previously rejected him as a youngster—in 2003, for whom he would perform at half-time breaks and corporate events and occasionally fill in for first-team players in advertisements. As

168-488: A footballing family, with his father Alan briefly playing in the youth set-ups of Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal and his cousin, Greg Lincoln , being part of the first team squad at Arsenal —though Lincoln never actually played for the club. Wingrove had a trial for Tottenham Hotspur aged 11, but was told he was too small and therefore not physically strong enough to make it at professional level. He began performing freestyle football to earn money while continuing to pursue

192-542: A series of videos designed to improve numeracy and increase physical activity in line with UK curriculums for students unable to attend school during lockdown. In 2018, Wingrove and Lynch produced a YouTube original series, titled F2 Finding Football , which was streamed on YouTube Premium . The series, which features a number of celebrity guests, was well received and was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for an Outstanding Travel and Adventure Program as well as two Streamy Awards . In 2018, Wingrove and Lynch established

216-535: A teenager, Lynch alleges that he played in Arsenal 's Academy, before later being released, although some have questioned the veracity of this claim. On an episode of JaackMaate's Happy Hour Podcast , former professional footballer and Arsenal academy graduate, Fabrice Muamba , revealed that he did not recall Lynch being a part of the squad and showed that Lynch did not appear in academy photographs. Lynch began learning freestyle skills and tricks in 2000 after watching

240-619: A way for Google to remove any reference to the original channel initiative. The content of the YouTube Original Channel Initiative includes SourceFed , Young Hollywood , The Mom's View , The Wall Street Journal , Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles , Crash Course , BadTeeth , i am OTHER , The Pet Collective, Epic Level TV, Geek & Sundry , MyMusic , Frederator Networks' Cartoon Hangover , The Spangler Effect , and The Multiverse among several others. One of Tubefilter 's articles includes

264-500: Is a partner with the dance channel DanceOn, while O'Neal plans the Comedy Shaq Network. In September 2012, twenty of the 100 original channels started getting at least 1 million views a week. In October 2012, it was announced that YouTube introduced 60 new original channels. Google invested $ 200 million into the original programming as well. The top 25 original programs also averaged around 1 million views per week at

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288-512: The FIFA video game series. As of 5 September 2021, their YouTube channel has 13 million subscribers and 2.8 billion views. As well as earning money from YouTube's ad-revenue monetisation, Wingrove and Lynch's videos feature brand endorsements; previous sponsorship deals include Adidas and Carlsberg . During the COVID-19 pandemic , as ambassadors for Santander UK , Wingrove and Lynch produced

312-678: The Isthmian Premier League . He registered his first goals for the club on 3 October 2017, scoring Billericay's fifth and sixth goal in a 7-1 win against Hungerford Town in the FA Cup . After being absent from the team for several matches in late 2017, the club revealed on Twitter that it had been agreed with Lynch that his work as part of the F2Freestylers would take priority over playing for Billericay. Lynch also posts short videos to his TikTok account, on which he has

336-634: The Middle East , China , Japan and South East Asia, with a direct audience of 1.47 billion football fans around the globe. YouTube Original Channel Initiative The YouTube Original Channel Initiative was a $ 100 million program funded by Google in 2012 to bring original content onto YouTube . The original channel initiative was also meant to kick start Google TV . The channels are collectively known as "original", "premium" or "YouTube funded" channels. Participants included: Most created channels through their production companies. Madonna

360-463: The West by circus performers, notably including Enrico Rastelli and Francis Brunn . In the 1970s and 1980s, Argentine footballer Diego Maradona famously brought his freestyle 'Life is Life' warm-up to international attention while playing for SSC Napoli . The ability to freestyle, however, was widely criticized at the time as not having direct relevance to playing the game of football . At

384-465: The beginning of the 21st century, several significant events helped elevate freestyle football with broader recognition. Brazilian footballer Ronaldinho starred in Nike advertising campaigns such as "Joga Bonito" (English: Play Beautifully), which popularized the ability to practice alone with a ball and develop new moves and tricks. Inspired by Maradona, South Korean footballer Mr Woo sought to become

408-590: The duo have been invited to perform at a number of high-profile footballing events, including the Ballon d'Or awards ceremony. They have featured in several charity football events, including Soccer Aid in 2018, where Lynch scored for the England side, and in 2019 in which Lynch scored twice, again for England. Lynch returned in the 2020 Soccer Aid match playing for the World XI due to his Jamaican ancestry. In 2017,

432-501: The official governing body of the World Freestyle Football Association : Typical events in competitive freestyle football include: The WFFA uses results from the official national championships, continental championships, international opens and world open competitions to assign a point ranking to competitors. Other key names that brought their own touch to the art of freestyle football over

456-558: The pair led a team of YouTubers and ex-professional footballers competing under the name Tekkers Town in the Wembley Cup against Hashtag United , and in 2018, they entered the competition as F2 FC, winning in the final against Rebel FC. On 8 April 2011, the duo registered their YouTube channel, F2Freestylers, on which they publish freestyle videos and tutorials to showcase football skills and tricks, often featuring celebrities and professional footballers, as well as videos relating to

480-416: The sport. Different styles were then developed such as lowers, uppers, sit-downs, grounds and blocking. In 2015, Ronaldinho was recognized by the World Freestyle Football Association (WFFA) as ambassador for the sport. Competitions have been organized across the globe and videos have been shared by over 80 million of people on a monthly basis. In recent years, some of the top football players in

504-422: The time of the announcement. In November 2012, YouTube ended funding for more than 60% of the 160 or so channels it financed as part of the initiative. After cancellation, YouTube kept all incoming revenue from these channels that failed to recoup their initial investments. In November 2013, it was reported that the landing page for the original channels had become a redirect to a 404 error page , seemingly as

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528-446: The world have credited freestyle and street football cultures for helping to develop their talents. These athletes have included Neymar Jr , Cristiano Ronaldo , Lionel Messi and Zlatan Ibrahimović . Tricks or moves in freestyle football are categorized into different disciplines or styles: Within the above disciplines, the following individual moves are among the most popular: The first major competition for freestyle football

552-625: The years include: In January 2019, freestyle football has received over 80 million video views per month on social media channels. There are over 70 related events every year, the largest being the Red Bull Street Style World Final. The sport is enjoyed mainly by a demographic of 12–25 year-olds, with 85% male. Major markets in terms of consumption of freestyle football content include the United States , Mexico , Brazil , UK , Spain , Poland , France ,

576-623: Was Red Bull Street Style (RBSS) in 2008, which was hosted in São Paulo, Brazil. Séan Garnier won this competition with a style that had not been seen in the public eye before. Super Ball, the first open world championship (where anyone could compete) catered to freestylers with ranging styles, recognizing the many ways to judge a freestyler. Hosted in the Czech Republic, Super Ball became the premiere annual international event for freestylers. The following tournaments are recognized by

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