On fashion, fame, and being more than just a footballer
Photograph by Chad Griffith
On a brief respite from the relentless Premier League schedule, Leicester City left back Christian Fuchs is handing out t-shirts to kids at a soccer clinic in Brooklyn, New York. The clinic, part of Fuchs’ Fox Soccer Academy, is meant to help kids gain a better understanding of how boys and girls learn the game in other parts of the world. “It’s crazy here in America,” he says. “You have young kids playing in all these tournaments and leagues and games. When I was growing up in Europe, before I turned 13 or 14, everything was ‘Ball, ball, ball, ball, ball.’ Your entire practice, you had a ball at your feet the whole time.’
With Fox Soccer Academy, Fuchs is trying to put the “fun” back in soccer for American kids. “This is fun for me too,” he says. “Most Premier League players, if they were doing a week-long clinic, they might show up for an hour. Maybe two if it’s good. For me, I’ll be there from nine in the morning until three in the afternoon, playing with the kids, having fun. That’s what the game is supposed to be.”
If you follow Fuchs on social media (he has over a half-million followers on all of his platforms), you already know he has a penchant for having fun. After Fuchs won the Premier League with Leicester City in 2016, his No Fuchs Given challenges have received millions of views. Soccer fans couldn’t get enough of Fuchs cracking eggs over forward Jamie Vardy’s head, or flicking ears with Japanese teammate Shinji Okazaki.
“The No Fuchs Given videos were about having fun with the boys,” Fuchs says. “You take a sweet challenge, and you put a little twist on it. When I saw the first video had a few million views, I asked my sponsor if they wanted to have a little more exposure. They had no interest, even though it was for a couple of million new eyes on their product. So I said, ‘I’ll do my own thing.’”
Photograph by Chad Griffith
With that, Fuchs entered the fashion business. The No Fuchs Given line of clothing was designed to appeal to a younger demographic that wanted soccer to be fun again. “We started brainstorming what would be good, what No Fuchs Given stands for,” he says. “We quickly realized that we wanted to attract people who have a certain attitude—the attitude of ‘not giving a Fuchs.’ (laughs) We came up with the idea of a pirate, because pirates have that attitude, so we designed a unique skull. It has a lot of individual elements, but it also has a smile, because it is supposed to be funny. It should make you smile.”
Thanks largely to Fuchs’ own social media presence, the fashion line took off immediately. “Even though our main demographic is people from age 16-24, I still get photos of guys in their fifties, wearing the shirts around the world, even in the Himalayas! To me, it’s not about selling a product, it’s about transporting an attitude. It’s a way of living. That’s what I want to be known for. Football is my passion, but I don’t want to be just a footballer. I do more than chase a ball. There are more facets to me.”
Fuchs shows those facets tirelessly on his social media feeds. He is relentlessly creating content for fans who want to have an inside look to what it’s like to play the world’s most popular sport at the highest level. Which makes it even more amazing that while still playing in the Premier League, creating content, running a fashion business, and flying back to New York City whenever he can to visit his wife and three children, he still finds a few hours to host a soccer clinic for kids.
“The academy is really important to me,” he says. “It’s growing rapidly in Austria and England. Obviously, the academy here in the U.S. is big to me. I’ve been flying back and forth to the U.S. now for six years, and it’s been hard. My wife has been a one-woman army taking care of our three kids. When this season is over, I’ll be moving here to New York full time. I can’t wait for Fox Soccer Academy to have a weekly presence in New York, where I can really oversee things and interact with the kids there more. I have loved every minute of the Premier League, and I will love every minute of being here in New York.”
Photograph by Chad Griffith
For Fuchs, living in America will provide him the opportunity to be even more of himself through his digital presence, something that many European footballers are reluctant to do. “It takes work,” he says. “You have to put the time in to build an audience, but the people have to be ready for it a well. In Germany, what I do would never be possible, to be honest. When I got to England, it was like, OK, people have more of an open mind. But here in America, people really have an open mind about players expressing themselves. You can do so much more.”
But don’t mistake Fuchs’ move to America in 2019 to mean that he’s done with the game. By then, he’ll be 33, with some great soccer left to be played and taught to the next generation. “I want to keep going until my legs can’t carry me,” he says, “and then I want to kick a little more.”