West Ham United

Launching the most ambitious community project in the Premier League

The Hammers’ move to the London Stadium – a world class venue which had earned plaudits as the Olympic Stadium for London 2020 – presented significant challenges as well as great opportunity.

With negative sentiment surrounding the stadium move, we were tasked with improving the club’s reputation and highlighting the impactful, inclusive and diverse programmes the Club delivered in the community which touched on several areas such as health, education, community and football development, engaging up to 50,000 people per year.

Working closely together, we identified a need for the efforts of the players, the club and the West Ham United Foundation to be recognised.

From this – and with full backing from the Board and of course the players, led by captain Mark Noble – the West Ham United Players’ Project was born.

The players from both the men and women’s squads would take ownership of charitable projects in the local area to a standard never set before by any football club, to drive awareness around the club’s fantastic work led by the West Ham Foundation.

We would launch the Players’ Project by turning the London Stadium into a huge interactive hub on one day where all of the community schemes and those who benefit from them would be brought under one roof with the star players participating in live demonstrations, football matches, cookery lessons, games with elderly fans and interviews with invited media. It was billed as the “Most Ambitious” community project any club has run.

More than 30 journalists from key national sports and broadcasting desks attended the Players’ Project Launch at the London Stadium, which was organised and run by the Club and us. Players completed 32 top tier interviews and the launch achieved more than 50 pieces of coverage, including a live launch broadcast by Sky Sports News, every national newspaper carrying articles and a segment on Match of the Day.

It raised positive sentiment towards West Ham’s community work and gained praise from sports journalists who attended.

The Project itself saw players from the men’s, women’s and Academy teams give more than 300 hours of community time, working directly with over 2,000 people from the local community – over this last year alone – to create opportunities and change lives.