Patrice Evra won Premier League titles and the Champions League with Manchester United, but PLAYER is responsible for getting his juices flowing now he's retired and based in Dubai.

Evra has co-founded PLAYER alongside football-tech entrepreneur Tommy Fish and the app is essentially LinkedIn for footballers, a place for elite professionals in the sport to take ownership of their identity, interact within that community and share game footage, and achievements.

The app is currently accessed on an invite-only basis to attract the top one per cent of players in Britain, but it will be rolled out to the public and excitement is building for its full release.

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Evra and Fish hope it can become the destination for players, coaches, scouts, agents and clubs. Each player will be able to share their club history, statistics and video content, and talks have already begun with Premier League clubs about how using the platform will benefit them.

When Evra was asked why he co-founded PLAYER, he told the Manchester Evening News: "I am one of the lucky ones - I had a very successful career. Now I want to give back to the football community. I want to help players achieve their dreams or at least reach their potential.

"Visibility is so important because it creates opportunity as we see with LinkedIn. I have a vision of creating life-changing opportunities for young ballers everywhere from South America to Africa. It's also important for the top players to own their football ID. It’s 2025 and players don’t have a digital home where they can make every match count.

"I didn’t come through an academy. I came from the street and had to fight my way from the Italian third division to winning the Champions League. But I showed it can be done.

"Now with the visibility we are giving players, we can make many more beautiful stories. Players are already getting pro contracts through the PLAYER platform and we haven’t even launched the mobile app yet."

Fish, co-founder of PLAYER and a huge United fan, said: "What we are building here is essentially like a social platform meeting a marketplace. You have the demand side, which is the clubs, and the supply side, which is the players. If you're talking to the players, it's LinkedIn meets Instagram.

"Pat said imagine if LinkedIn and Instagram have a baby, with a focus on football, and that's what PLAYER is. I built different versions of this platform and came up with the idea in 2016, but I didn't have the means or contacts to start it and it's so difficult to build your dream while paying for bills.

"It's been a long old slog, eight years, to launch PLAYER. I started doing some work with Patrice a few years ago and I was hiring brand partnerships and creatives for him - that kind of stuff. In the course of getting friendly with Pat, I showed him the prototype and he was like 'oh, wow, this would be amazing'.

"I wasn't pitching when I showed it to him and he said this would be amazing for scouts. He was like 'wow' when I told him it was mine and at the beginning of 2024, we raised investment, made connections with clubs and built a team, so we did a showcase game with West Ham's academy.

"Now we're working with multiple clubs in the Premier League and EFL, and we're basically just trying to make as many opportunities and feel-good stories as we can. One of the players has gone professional from that early showcase game and she's now playing with a club in Cyprus."

The MEN interviewed Neil Harris in September and he has joined the platform to advise on supporting young players on and off the pitch. Harris spent 21 years in United's academy moulding several future first-team stars and is sharing his expertise after his redundancy at United.

Anthony Elanga and Scott McTominay were among the dozens of players who messaged Harris after his United departure, and PLAYER were recently invited down to visit Elanga's home.

Evra also visited Kobbie Mainoo to tap into his thoughts on youth development and PLAYER's camera crew were struck by his maturity. Mainoo provided advice to aspiring young players, who will be able to use the app, and it's hoped elite professionals will form an important part of the community.

"I've had a profile in the youth development game and I had to ensure a new role aligned with my ethos and from talking to Tommy, I wanted to join," said Harris. "It's free for footballers, which is massive, and if Tommy had said we were charging for showcase games and the app, I'm not sure I would have said let's go ahead and do this. It's a digital footballing CV and is so useful.

"When I was a player, you wrote letters to clubs and spoke about yourself, but for players to have a digital footballing CV with clips, getting stats and references down, that is massive.

"Football can be subjective, it can be cruel and people may turn up to trial games and that will be it. Most kids have a phone now, but most might not have access to academies and or be able to play in games from a money perspective, so it's the right time for kids to have these digital CVS.

"If you're scouting a player and they can show you their digital CV on PLAYER, it will be fantastic for them and I think it's a real opportunity for kids to be seen when they otherwise wouldn't be.

"I think it's a great initiative to help kids retain their love of the game and I quote that so much in everything that I do because that's the reason we all started playing football. The reason we carry on playing is because of the love of football, but you can fall out of love when you are let go by an academy, or something like that, and we want to help players retain the love and make sure they have access.

"Like Tommy said, we want to get kids to the best possible place they can be. We're not saying all these players will get chances with pro clubs, but we're trying to give him them better access via the app and via showcase games.

"Lots of showcase games are pay-to-play and we're putting together teams [free of charge] that can be competitive. When talent and opportunity meets, that's when things can happen."

Although PLAYER is currently only available for 17 year olds upwards, it will be rolled out to younger age groups. "We're doing the young adult age group at the moment, then once we've nailed that, we'll extend it to YDP, which is 12 to 16, and then we'll do the pre-academy age group," said Fish.

"In years gone by, players were literally posting CVs and how on earth would you find out how good someone is? We've reached 2025 and boys are still sending out CVs on email. There was nowhere you could just find out the information in one place, so we want to revolutionise that.

"Some of the players have been so thankful and the funny thing is, when I was testing it, we did a showcase game against Brentford U18s and I put together two teams and we won both games. That led to trials for our boys at Stockport County and Leyton Orient. They didn't get signed but these boys were settling at clubs in Step Four and that was great to see, so it gives them a platform.

"The big thing to mention is the app hasn't even launched yet - it has been just a web app. It's been approved now by Google and Apple, and we're starting the onboarding process.

"The aim is to build the community in the right way and we need the players who come onto it to be inspired and impressed by the players who they see on there. It cannot just be a sea of players all in the same scenario, so we're working with a lot of players who want to be on there for fun.

"It's a community of footballers and we have players who are captaining academy sides coming onto it, not because they want a move, but because it's good to control of their career somewhat and be in control of their footballing ID because that has never happened before."

Fish continued: "When we went into the Sky Sports studio, they asked Pat why would a top player want to be on PLAYER. He said imagine a young player scores a screamer and then Cole Palmer comments, 'what a wonderful goal', can you imagine what that does for the player and others seeing it?

"They'll think If I get my content up on here, I'll be able to mix with my heroes in a way that was never possible before. We want to have everyone, from Cristiano Ronaldo to Lionel Messi, to these grassroots kids, who just want to show the world what they can do on the pitch.

"We have a showcase roadshow coming up when the players will be playing games around the country and Pat will be present for a lot of that, as he often comes in from Dubai to join us."

Evra and Fish plan to roll out PLAYER across the world and have big ideas for its future. The concept is only getting started and there is a passionate team working hard to push it forward.

You can find out more information about PLAYER here.