Leeds United will be the first English club to sign with Roc Nation

Leeds United will be the first Premier League club to sign Roc Nation, the Jay-Z's communications agency. The English team follows AC Milan, the first ever football team that has entered into an agreement with the American company, by a few months. Leeds and Roc Nation presented this weekend's new partnership with a mural in the Yorkshire city: it represents Albert Johanneson, the club's first black player, the club's historic South African defender Lucas Radebe and current team star Kalvin Phillips, who is also of Jamaican origin. The graffiti was made by Akse P19, the same writer who had drawn Marcus Rashford on a Manchester home.

As with AC Milan, Roc Nation will take care of the digital promotion of the English club and the organization of events, but above all, to increase the fan base of the team in the United States and Asia. The goal of partnerhsip, in fact, on the one hand, is to improve the brand awareness of Leeds United with events and advertising, on the other, to allow Roc Nation to expand its presence in European football, touching for the first time the world of the Premier League, the most broadcast football league in the world. Roc Nation will allow Leeds to use their talents to promote events or talk to the club's fan base. An example of this is the playlist curated by Leeds defender Luke Ayling on the TIDAL platform, with traces of roc nation's best artists and which the team will use during the warm-up in home games. 

"By working with them we are demonstrating our ambition to everyone", explained Leeds sporting director Victor Orta, while Kelly Hogart, vice president of communications and marketing at Roc Nation told Sky Sport UK that "we wanted a partner who was looking for new things, who wanted to experiment with new communication approaches to their fans. We are very excited about this new partnership."