1. Biography

2. Girls ATW

3. Boldr

4. Africa Angels

5. Career

6. References

7. External links

Liv Cooke (born 20 April 1999) is a British professional football freestyler,^[1][2] the current world champion and 4 x world record holder. She is also a Champions League Match Day Reporter, Entrepreneur, UEFA Women's Football & Men’s Euro 2020 Ambassador and director of Africa Angels Charity.

Biography

Cooke got into football at a young age having grown up with her two older brothers, Jack and Sam.

At the age of 10, Liv joined Preston North End F.C. whilst also playing in Woodlea Junior School's football team. Cooke went on to study at Balshaw's Church of England High School, where she captained the girls' football team, and signed for the Blackburn Rovers F.C. Centre of Excellence at the age of 14.

One year later, Cooke was sidelined by a recurring back injury and discovered freestyle football videos online. She began to learn the basics in her back garden and stopped playing football in 2015 to focus on freestyle. In 2016, at the age of 17, Cooke left Runshaw College early to pursue a career as a professional football freestyler.

In November 2016, Cooke finished second in the 2016 World Football Freestyle Championships in Melbourne^[3] breaking her foot during the final.

In August 2017, Cooke became the world's number 1 football freestyler.{{citation needed|date=April 2018}} She obtained full points in every battle during the event in Prague on her way to the world title. Alongside competing, she has recently appeared in a number of TV commercials, hosted video series and regularly travels across the world to make appearances.{{citation needed|date=April 2018}}

In December 2018, Cooke broke four world records live in Barcelona. She currently holds these records.

Alongside her football freestyle career Cooke has founded multiple businesses and worked for many charitable causes.

As a result of Cooke's work, she has won a number of awards including Parliamentary Rising Star^[4] and Woman of the Future.^[5]

Girls ATW

In May 2016, Cooke founded Girls ATW, which went on to become the world's leading female football freestyle agency. Having officially launched in June 2016, the company acted as both a platform for elite female football freestylers and a bridge to interact with clients and utilise their skills sets as services for commercials, campaigns, fun days, and more.^[6]

Despite running as a success Cooke folded the company in 2017 to focus all her attention on training for the world championships.

Boldr

In January 2018, after designing and developing The Ball Holder - a football accessory, Cooke co-founded Boldr - a lifestyle and sports innovation brand - with Adam Wilson.{{citation needed|date=April 2018}} In February 2018, Adam's share of Boldr was bought out by Caan Baybutt.{{importance inline}}

Africa Angels

In 2018 Cooke became the director of Africa Angels, a charity that works to support education, equality, eliminate poverty and transform communities in Africa.{{Vague|date=March 2019}} The charity has now built and continues to support two schools and multiple water wells.

Career

In 2015, Cooke performed publicly for the first time at St Andrews Infant School in her local town of Leyland, Lancashire. This was quickly followed by her first professional event, where she performed at a Blackburn Rovers half-time show at Ewood Park. Since then, Cooke has become the youngest ever professional football freestyler, performing at events across the globe and working with a number of major organisations.

Her work has included performing at Qatar’s national sports day,^[7] becoming an ambassador for the UEFA ‘We Play Strong’ initiative designed to get more girls into football, and touring Australia to inspire children to get active. Commercially, Cooke has featured in a Channel 4 TV commercial, a number of Adidas commercials, and a LIDL advert.^[8] In addition, she has appeared on a number of TV shows including Match of the Day, Soccer AM, BBC^[9] and Fox Soccer News.^[10]

Liv made her competitive freestyle debut in London in August 2016 at the Red Bull Street Style World Finals,^[11] where she placed 6th and was the youngest qualifier.

Later that year, Cooke qualified for the 2016 World Football Freestyle Championships in Melbourne.^[12] She finished second, making her the youngest ever finalist. Cooke broke her foot in the final, which ruled her out for several months. She returned to training in April 2017.

In August 2017, Cooke qualified for the 2017 Super Ball open football freestyle championships in Prague. Once there, she won all of her battles to become the world football freestyle champion and the youngest in history to ever take the title.

References

External links

• Liv Cooke official website
• Girls ATW official website
• Boldr official website

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