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Brit ‘making £10,000 a MONTH' from helping Fortnite players online and says he even quit sixth form ‘after a day'

Brit ‘making £10,000 a MONTH' from helping Fortnite players online and says he even quit sixth form ‘after a day'

The Sun5 days ago

ONE YOUNG Brit says he makes a staggering £10,000 a month from a popular video game.
The gaming enthusiast quit sixth form 'after a day' in order to pursue his highly-lucrative career - where he manages Fortnite players.
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Ross McLaren, 22, originally wanted to be a professional Fortnite player and spent hours at home practising.
Ross has muscular dystrophy - a disease which causes muscles in the body to weaken over time - but he thinks that was an 'advantage' in his career.
He said: 'Having muscular dystrophy was somewhat of an advantage for me as it meant I spent a lot more time on a computer when I was younger, as I couldn't go out and play sports like other kids.'
His dreams of becoming a 'pro Fortnite player' were dashed when he realised he 'wasn't good enough' to match up to some of the best players in the world.
However, Ross knew that he could put his talents to good use.
At the age of 17, while still living with his parents Lesley and Craig, he decided to manage other players.
His career quickly took off and he began to make an eye-watering sum of money.
Ross said: 'By summer 2021, I was making £10,000 per month, and I told my parents I didn't want to sit my Advanced Highers.'
His parents encouraged him to go back to school, but Ross quit after just one day.
Ross said that he got his big break when he worked with Bugha, a streamer who only had 20,000 followers at the time.
Gamer granny 'hooked' on Fortnite at 76 - and says it was 'love at first sight' after amassing 20k followers on Twitch
When Bugha won the Fortnite World Cup in 2018 and won $3 million, his subscriber count rocketed to one million.
Soon, Ross became inundated with business opportunities with players begging him to edit videos of them playing the game.
After leaving George Heriot's School, the tech expert started running KSI's gaming channel; - which has over 22 million subscribers.
As his star continues to rise, Ross is eyeing a move to Dallas, Texas, where many of the biggest Fortnite streamers are based.
The news comes after the makers of an online game with 40 million players will be removed from two consoles.
Black Desert Online has long been one of the most popular games in the industry, but will soon no longer be available on PS4 and XBox One.
Players will have to buy a Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 to play the game from June 26.
The game's developers, Pearl Abyss, said: "We understand that this news may be disappointing for our longtime Adventurers on these platforms.
"Please know that this decision was made after careful consideration, with the goal of ensuring the future growth and evolution of Black Desert Console.
"We remain fully committed to delivering you the best possible adventures in Black Desert."
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In buyers' market art is in the sale, just look at Brighton (not United)
In buyers' market art is in the sale, just look at Brighton (not United)

Times

time38 minutes ago

  • Times

In buyers' market art is in the sale, just look at Brighton (not United)

The key to poker is understanding the value of what is in your hand. In the winter transfer window of 2023, when Chelsea offered £55million for Moisés Caicedo, Brighton & Hove Albion said 'no'. They said the same again when Arsenal followed with a £60million bid, and still no when they raised it to £70million. From the outside, there was consternation. Danny Murphy told talkSPORT Brighton's stance was 'ridiculous' and 'for £70million I would have driven Caicedo there'. But when the summer window opened and Chelsea returned with offers of £60million, then £70million and then £80million, Brighton's answers remained emphatic: no, no, and no again. It was another no when Manchester United entered the running and no when Chelsea suddenly raised the ante and went all the way to the £100million mark. At last, when Liverpool mooted £111million, Brighton accepted a bid — and yet still there were cards to play. Chelsea returned to the table with £115million and finally, in August 2023, Caicedo was on his way. Though not before Brighton, who had paid only £4million for the Ecuadorian midfielder 18 months previously, managed to insert a sell-on clause, guaranteeing a healthy slice of any transfer fee Chelsea get for Caicedo in future, into the deal. Brighton's owner, Tony Bloom, was known as 'The Lizard' during his professional poker career and there may be no one better in the game for the cold-blooded execution of player sales. There are a thousand books and courses on the art of selling but it is the most undervalued, unperfected element in English clubs' transfer operations; the overlooked secret of player trading. Bloom and Brighton are outliers. According to a senior figure in the recruitment department of a top Premier League club: 'Everyone invests loads and loads of money on scouting, talent ID, data, coaching, blah, blah, but very little on the sales side of things. There is no strategy. What's the plan when clubs want to sell a player? Sit there saying, 'I hope someone comes in for him.' ' The situation is made all the more curious by the fact that in this age of Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR) and inflated fees — which must be funded somehow — an ability to raise money through sales has never been more important. So many Premier League clubs, in this window, find their plans dependent on how effectively, and lucratively, they can offload players. United are the most obvious example, but Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester City, Aston Villa and many others need to offload players. It doesn't excite fans, who focus on the shiny new stars arriving, but getting rid of the right ones, at the right prices, can be as crucial as signing well. United, in straightened times and in the straitjacket of PSR, are trying to fund a squad makeover to fit Ruben Amorim's style. Having spent £62.5million on Matheus Cunha and had two bids — the latest for £55million plus £7.5million in add-ons — rejected for Bryan Mbeumo, they want a striker, wingback, midfielder and goalkeeper but whether they recruit in all those positions will depend on what funds they can realise from offloading their unwanted players, such as Alejandro Garnacho, Marcus Rashford, Antony and Jadon Sancho. All bar Garnacho are on wages that severely restrict which clubs can afford them, and United's new director of football, Jason Wilcox, has the added headache of Amorim and/or those players themselves making clear it is time for them to leave United, taking away any chance of hard-balling would-be buyers. Arsenal are close to announcing deals for Martín Zubimendi, Christian Norgaard and Kepa Arrizabalaga and are working on the signing of Cristhian Mosquera from Valencia — all for sensible fees. Yet Mikel Arteta's main requirement is a new striker, and with targets Viktor Gyokeres and Benjamin Sesko priced in excess of £60million, the club are looking to raise about £50million from sales. They would listen to offers for Oleksandr Zinchenko, Jakub Kiwior, Reiss Nelson and perhaps even Gabriel Martinelli. With their income slashed by failing to reach the Champions League, Aston Villa are looking to reduce player costs by £80million this summer. They have sold cleverly in the past — getting €188million (£160million) for Jhon Durán, Moussa Diaby and Douglas Luiz last season — and will have to sell smartly again, ideally starting before the PSR 2024-25 accounting deadline of midnight Monday. Pep Guardiola has threatened to quit if City don't reduce the size of his squad, and Jack Grealish is the most eye-catching item in their shop window. Guardiola may benefit from having a new sporting director, Hugo Viana, whose experience (gained at Sporting Lisbon) is within a player-trading model as opposed to the departing Txiki Begiristain, one of the best sporting directors of all time but who has only worked at dominant clubs in periods where there was little emphasis on sales. After the £40million signing of Milos Kerkez pushed their summer spending beyond £200million, Liverpool are not finished recruiting but need to balance their expenditure with more sales on top of the £24million already received for Caoimhin Kelleher, Nat Phillips and Trent Alexander-Arnold. Jarell Quansah is expected to join Bayer Leverkusen for £35million after the European Under-21 Championship and Tyler Morton, also excelling at the tournament, is another asset they will seek to realise. Talks are continuing with Napoli over a deal to sell Darwin Núñez, while Federico Chiesa, who interests several Serie A clubs, is also likely to be sold. Ideally, with Kerkez aboard, the Liverpool would raise funds by disposing of a left back. Andrew Robertson is considering interest from Atletico Madrid but may stay for the final year of his contract, though, and Kostas Tsimikas is happy in a back-up role. A 'Greek Scouser' who describes Liverpool as 'the Broadway of football' may be hard to shift. The importance of sales was laid out at the end of the previous summer transfer window by the online football finance expert Swiss Ramble. From 2022-24, Brighton's gross spending on players (£411million) exceeded that of Liverpool, Newcastle United, Villa and — by a significant margin — the outlays of supposed peer clubs such as Brentford, Fulham and Crystal Palace. But their net spend? It was just £20million. They had traded their squad upwards — readying it to finish a club-record eighth in 2024-25 — for less than £7million per season, thanks to sales. The analysis showed Chelsea and City to have been by far the period's biggest sellers. The massive recruitment programmes undergone by both would have been impossible without recouping through player disposals. The pressure on Arsenal, United, Tottenham Hotspur and Newcastle was also clear in the figures. Those clubs' relatively low sales left them with big net spends. Arsenal's gross outlay on players was only £50million more than City's over a five-year period, but their net spend was £480million more. The problems that stores up perhaps explain why City can now spend with abandon to help Guardiola rebuild while Arteta is still waiting for his striker. Everton were the only club to make a transfer profit from 2020-24, showing how selling was fundamental to the club's very survival during the stricken final years of Farhad Moshiri's ownership. But selling is not just about how much you make, it's about which goods you are willing to part with, and though City raised £499million by offloading players from 2022-24 it was a period where they parted with talents including Cole Palmer, Morgan Rogers, Liam Delap, James Trafford and Julián Alvarez. None look like wise disposals now. There are different ways of measuring how 'good' a player sale is. One is to compare at the price achieved to market value and, using Transfermarkt's calculations, the best business of last summer included Newcastle realising £22.2million more than market value when selling Elliot Anderson to Nottingham Forest, Bournemouth achieving £20.8million more when selling Dominic Solanke to Tottenham and Wolves extracting £13.2million more for Max Kilman than the market said he was worth. However, another way is to look at the value of the player sold a year down the line. The blossoming of Anderson at Forest suggests Newcastle actually undervalued him. On the other hand the Kilman deal looks even better from Wolves' point of view — 12 months on he is now worth £19.2million less than West Ham paid for him. City selling Alvarez to Atletico Madrid for £64million seems a bad deal by both measures. The price was £13million below the Argentina forward's market value at the time and now it is £21.4million below his market value — albeit add-ons included in the deal may allow City to recoup up to £17million. United fare dreadfully in the analysis. They have made 14 significant sales in the past three seasons, 11 of whom now valued higher than the fees received for them, with Scott McTominay, Anthony Elanga and Álvaro Carreras worth a combined £63million more. To value players, Brighton use the unique information provided by Jamestown Analytics, an offshoot of Bloom's betting data company, Starlizard. They stick to those valuations and ignore distractions: back in January 2023, Caicedo agitated to go, even posting a plea to leave on Instagram. Brighton did not go to war with their asset but calmly asked him to stay away from training until the transfer window closed and then extended his contract, to further increase his value. Only selling when a replacement has been signed or lined up is also the Brighton way. Marc Cucurella was replaced by Pervis Estupiñán, Robert Sánchez by Bart Verbruggen and Leandro Trossard by João Pedro. Caicedo himself was the replacement for Yves Bissouma and on the same day he signed for Chelsea, Brighton entered talks with Lille for his replacement, Carlos Baleba. Now Baleba, 21, is projected to be a future £100million sale but a club who made gentle inquiries came away with the impression that Brighton are unlikely to let him go until next season, because his replacement has not been identified yet. Liverpool's headaches are eased by having Michael Edwards and Richard Hughes to oversee trading. Hughes sold well at Bournemouth and squeezing €10million from Real Madrid for the last month of Alexander-Arnold's contract was remarkable even by Edwards's standards. During the building phase of the modern Liverpool, as sporting director Edwards raised £396million from sales from 2014-17 — enabling the recruitment of Virgil van Dijk, Mo Salah, Sadio Mané, Roberto Firmino, Joël Matip, Gini Wijnaldum, Adam Lallana, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Joe Gomez and Robertson on a pretty much obscene £58million net spend. 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Tom Brady's Birmingham join transfer race for Nottingham Forest midfielder but will have to stump up £8million
Tom Brady's Birmingham join transfer race for Nottingham Forest midfielder but will have to stump up £8million

The Sun

time38 minutes ago

  • The Sun

Tom Brady's Birmingham join transfer race for Nottingham Forest midfielder but will have to stump up £8million

NOTTINGHAM FOREST have set their price for in-demand midfielder Lewis O'Brien amid interest from a slew of Championship clubs. Southampton, Hull and Tom Brady-owned Birmingham City are all keen on the 26-year-old this summer. 2 Forest want £8million O'Brien, a figure that could cool the interest of those monitoring him. O'Brien shone on loan at Swansea last season, where he made 16 Championship appearances after making the switch in the winter window. But his eye-catching performances may have worked against him as Forest now chase a bigger fee big fee. Hull have already launched an approach at £5m and may up their offer to land him. O'Brien is in the last year of his deal at Forest having joined the club back in 2022. His time at The City Ground has been a frustrating one, making just 17 first-team appearances since arriving from Huddersfield Town. Instead, O'Brien has had to settle for minutes elsewhere - heading on loan to four separate clubs since his move. Those temporary switches have included spells in the Championship with Middlesbrough and Swansea, as well as two forays to the USA with MLS clubs LA FC and DC United. O'Brien left the door open for a return to Swansea at the end of last season. He said: "I have really enjoyed my time here. It's never out of the question [returning], but sometimes it's not in my hands, especially having to go back to my parent club. "We will see what the summer holds. It's never say never really." Meanwhile Swans manager Alan Sheehan also made it clear he would love O'Brien back in South Wales. He said: "The effect he has had on the place, he has been exceptional. I cannot speak highly enough about him and I make no secret of that. "If he is available, should you try to re-sign him? I think that's quite an obvious answer." 2

‘I respect them and I support their message': How Kneecap won over Glastonbury's masses
‘I respect them and I support their message': How Kneecap won over Glastonbury's masses

Telegraph

time39 minutes ago

  • Telegraph

‘I respect them and I support their message': How Kneecap won over Glastonbury's masses

This was a day of political pantomime at Glastonbury, a day when the usual chilled out vibes were replaced by something altogether more febrile and excitable. The chants of 'Free Palestine' that have peppered the site over the last 48 hours came to a head during three sets on the West Holts stage: from British singer Nilüfer Yanya, London hip hop duo Bob Vylan and the folk devils du jour, Irish hip hop band Kneecap. Palestinian flags made up around half the banners at these gigs, and they pepper the entire festival too. In sweltering heat, Yanya's set closed with a backdrop that read 'More action, less noise, free Palestine' (the exhausted lunchtime crowd let out a feeble whoop), while Bob Vylan blasted execs in the music industry who supported Isreal. Vylan's set culminated in him leading the chant 'Kill the IDF', supported by a full-throated crowd, even if every audience member didn't partake. But the heat rose even further with Kneecap, whose pro-Palestinian stance and politicised, cartoony rap drew one of the biggest crowds the West Holts – Glastonbury's third biggest stage – has ever seen, and certainly at 4pm. This is my 22 nd time at this event and I can't recall more anticipation over a mid-afternoon act. Tens of thousands of people were crammed onto this tiny patch of Somerset grass, a crowd so big that organisers closed the field an hour before they came on. In the shadow of Glastonbury Tor, orange and green flares blazed as chants of 'Free Palestine' and 'Free Mo Chara' (the latter a reference to the band's rapper who is alleged to have displayed a flag in support of Hezbollah) echoed around the Vale of Avalon. It's unlikely that residents of the sweetly bucolic nearby village of Pilton have ever heard anything like it. 'I respect them and I support their message, and that's why I'm here,' says Sian, 27, who has seen the band before and says they're 'amazing'. 'They're controversial but they're trying to spread a message.' Ah yes. The message. Moral panic has swept the nation about this performance, with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer saying it shouldn't happen. Behind the scenes, some big-name execs within the music industry have been lobbying Glastonbury to drop the band. But happen it did, with festival organiser Emily Eavis saying on Wednesday that all performers are 'welcome'. What's more, the whole thing was meant to be filmed by the BBC. 'The BBC's editor is going to have some f---ing job,' said Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, stage name Mó Chara, half way through the set. But that wasn't the case. The live feed was cut, despite the previous band – rock-rap duo Bob Vylan – having their set broadcast. At the time of writing it is not clear whether the BBC will show edited highlights of Kneecap or not. Here's a Kneecap recap. The West Belfast group are Republican hip hop musicians who rap largely in the Irish language and have never hidden their disdain for the British government (they're named after the grim punishment meted out by the IRA). In April, the rappers hit the headlines when they displayed a message at California's Coachella accusing Israel of 'committing genocide against the Palestinian people'. Film then emerged of the band urging people to kill their local MP (they apologised). And earlier this month, member Ó hAnnaidh (Mo Chara), appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London, charged with a terror offence for allegedly displaying a flag in support of proscribed organisation Hezbollah at a London gig last year. The 27-year-old was bailed and will next appear in court on August 20 – in a previous statement, his band denied the offence. Chara received a hero's welcome at the Pyramid Stage. Chara's two bandmates – Naoise Ó Cairealláin, known as Móglaí Bap, and JJ Ó Dochartaigh, known as DJ Próvaí, a former teacher who also wears a balaclava in the colours of the Irish tricolour – bounded around in the broiling heat, crowd-surfing, encouraging a mosh pit and generally stoking the cauldron of chaos. The trio thanked the organising Eavis family for standing by them amid pressure to cancel the show. I lost count of the number of times chants of 'F--- Keir Starmer' and 'Free Palestine' rang out. The crowd was crushingly tight to be in. There was never a sense that things could tip into violence though. The concert was what I'd call an angry celebration. The band were preaching to the converted here. One 26-year-old audience member has snuck away from his friends to watch Kneecap today. 'A lot of them are Jewish, and I have to keep it quiet,' he says. But his motives aren't what you'd expect. His mum runs an Irish centre in Leeds and he picked up the Irish language through his grandfather. Despite their almost-cancellation in the outside world, Kneecap really connect with people. 'You're just a s--- Jeremy Corbyn,' went one chant about Starmer. Kneecap's politics can be something of a joke. Then there's this. The bare faces of the people wearing balaclavas in the audience suggested they weren't even born when the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998. To them, shorn of all context, this is dress-up. Cosplay. Riverdance for rebels. And once the concert was over, these same hoards dispersed to watch chart-friendly performers such as Raye, Charli XCX or the Scissor Sisters. Kneecap provided a 'moment' for sure. Fans were happy. Walking out, Vincent Poel, 28, said there was 'exactly the right amount' of politics in the trio's set. But, at the end of the day and after all the noise, this was just entertainment.

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