Alongside studying UCFB’s BA (Hons) Football Business & Media programme, Harry Clayton took the initiative to start his own business, FPLFA (Fantasy Premier League FA), during last year’s pandemic. Having finished second in the UCFB Sports Entrepreneur Award in March, he was able to grow and develop the company with the money invested into it.

Here, Harry shares how it’s helped transform his business and taken him one step closer to his ultimate goal with FPLFA…

Tell us about FPLFA, what you do and what inspired you to start the business.

We have only recently decided to rebrand as FPLFA. Some might recognise MCRFPL as that is what we were known as before, and what we entered the UCFB Entrepreneur Competition last March with. Before we were MCRFPL it was all just a concept, an idea: competitive fantasy football. This included cash prizes, promotions and relegations, manager of the month competitions and knockout cup tournaments to keep casual players engaged. This concept was often discussed over a pint after work!

The only problem we had was not having the time to make it happen - then the COVID-19 pandemic happened. It was a tough time for everyone but fortunately we managed to produce something positive out of it, and began setting up the company in September 2020.

A Facebook page was set up to begin with. That’s when I got involved. Our process is simple: we take the data from the Official FPL website and app, process and refine that data in a spreadsheet, then produce a graphic and post it. It’s a four step process, and there are four of us involved. We have been doing this since September 2020 so by now we are very comfortable with our system, and the players that we have enjoy the product we produce.

How did it feel to come as a runner-up in the UCFB Sports Entrepreneur Award earlier this year?

We came away feeling incredibly positive despite not winning it. Entering it gave us so much more incentive to structure our business, as well as what we needed to make a business plan and stick to it. The first phase of the competition was to do just that, and once through to the final phase there was a 30-minute presentation to be completed.

We all agreed that any investment would be a bonus. What we came for was the business knowledge and advice that the panel could give us, as we didn’t really have any access to that anywhere else at the time.

I want to give a special mention to Ushma Khadia, a careers coach at UCFB who helped me immensely in the build-up to the big day. We were over the moon finishing second and securing some investment, it made us realise what an opportunity we had with our idea.

How has the funding from the award helped build and grow FPLFA?

It has helped massively. We have been able to set the foundations for our business, and on top of this begin to expand. We have a fully functioning website (FPLFA.com), have registered as a limited partnership and have set-up a business account. We also now communicate with one another through Microsoft Teams as the funding enabled us to subscribe to Microsoft Office. 

On top of that, the funding gave us the opportunity to increase the prize pools that we offer for our competitions. For example, our paid league this season has a prize pool of £1,000, which is a huge increase.

How has your BA (Hons) Football Business & Media degree helped you understand the football business framework and progress within it?

The degree has certainly opened my eyes to a whole new world. In my first year I thought it would be the media path that I’d take but the business side captured my interest a lot more.

I decided I wanted to have a go at building something of my own, something a bit different but without coming to UCFB I would never have been in a position to do so. I have a lot to thank UCFB for. Leaving home and moving up to Manchester has made me the person I am today. I got a job in order to get by, and that job is where this idea was born. 

What are your aspirations for the company going forward?

Without sounding too naive all of us here at FPLFA have real confidence we can go on to be really successful. We are all invested in the idea. We have our own reasons to be invested in the idea and we are committed to going about it in the right manner too. 

We have spent a lot of time looking into the legal side of what we do. It is all about growth for us now. We’ve given our system and the product a bit of time, so we’ve been able to iron out any issues. Now we want to grow.

I’d again like to mention two UCFB Wembley students we have teamed up with for this season, Joshua Scott and Ben Brown. I got in touch and we agreed to name our first knockout cup competition The FPL Graduates Knockout Cup; in return they, as FPL graduates, documented their progress on the website.

How do you see fantasy football growing and developing in the next ten years?

Not a lot of people will know but fantasy football has been around almost as long as football. Where there is football there is a fantasy football game - the demand for it has always been there. It still continues to grow every year. We’ve done our research - there were just over eight million accounts signed up and playing on the Official Premier League website and app last season. If we could take just a really small percentage of that figure and get them in our paid league, knockout cup competitions and competing for our manager of the month awards we’d be really happy. 

What are your ultimate career aspirations in sport?

As I mentioned before all of us here are really invested in our idea, perhaps myself more than most. I want to be able to take a wage from what it is that we are doing here eventually. I said when we entered the Entrepreneur Competition that we had to create a business plan which we could use as a tool to help us more than anything, to the point we forgot what we were doing it for whilst making it. We came up with a five-year plan, and by year five we aim to be able to take a wage. So that would be my aspiration for sure, and I’m confident that with that bit of time we can make it happen.