Ballboy kicked by Hazard now in business with Floyd link

 

Charlie Morgan, the ballboy that Eden Hazard kicked eight years ago – has carved out a very successful business career that has Floyd Mayweather interested.

The Welshman, who was 17 at the time, hit headlines during an infamous moment in Swansea’s League Cup semi-final second-leg win over Chelsea in 2013.

With the Swans 2-0 from the first leg at Stamford Bridge, the Blues were pushing hard to get into the game.

And the game changed when Hazard tried to get the ball on 80 minutes for a goal kick, only for Morgan to fall on the ball.

It saw the Belgian kick the then-teenager, earning himself a red card and handing Swansea a place in the League Cup final.

The ball boy became an overnight celebrity, picking up 100,000 followers on Twitter.

Writing after the incident on the social media site, he said: “Crazy 24 hours. Spoke to Hazard and I will not be pressing charges. Be in touch.”

As the son of one of Swansea’s biggest shareholders, Martin Morgan, he was already pursuing business as a career – taking his A levels at the time of the match.

And that has become a reality, setting up an ultra-premium vodka brand with a friend.

Aged 19, Morgan and friend Jackson Quinn noticed a gap in the market for a new brand of the alcoholic drink.

They told WalesOnline : “ We were 18, 19, 20 at the time and every one of our friends for their birthday would always get a bottle of the same old vodkas.

“We just felt it was a bit boring. We just felt we could do it a little bit better.”

Producing 2,000 bottles and launching them around Swansea, they used an eye-catching gold bottle to name their brand Au Vodka.

As the brand got a good reputation, it was eventually picked up DJ and TV presenter Charlie Sloth who was so impressed that he invested in the pair.

This saw them launch a Black Grape flavour in 2019, using endorsements from UK rappers and celebrities to sell 10,000 bottles in 2019.

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And this rocketed to 1.7m during the Covid-19 pandemic last year, leading Morgan and Quinn to own the biggest user premium vodka brand in the UK for sales, with the exception of Smirnoff.

A big part of their growth has been Instagram, where Au Vodka has 104,000 followers – and that helped them reach multi-millionaire athlete Mayweather.