The Football Association has pulled a new online cookery series with M&S featuring Yung Filly and England stars after the British YouTuber and rapper was charged following rape allegations, Sky News can reveal.
“The Greater Game” campaign was only launched yesterday by the FA with England team sponsor M&S Food to promote healthy eating and “positively influence” children aged between 12 and 16 years old.
England stars Bukayo Saka, Ezri Konsa, and Jarrod Bowen were due to feature in the videos as part of the “Freestyle Cooking” series on an FA YouTube channel.
In an announcement promoted yesterday in marketing media, the FA said it had chosen Yung Filly for the series to “encourage young people up and down the country to experiment with cooking healthy alternatives”.
But the governing body for English football reacted swiftly to the news that broke overnight in Australia that Yung Filly – whose real name is Andres Felipe Valencia Barrientos – had been arrested and taken into custody in Brisbane on Tuesday, and extradited to Perth on Wednesday.
Yung Filly has been touring in Australia, where he is accused of assaulting a woman in her 20s in his Perth hotel room after he performed at a venue in Hillarys, a northern coastal suburb of the capital of Western Australia.
The 29-year-old appeared at Perth Magistrates’ Court on Thursday charged with four counts of sexual penetration without consent, three counts of assault occasioning bodily harm, and one count of impeding a person’s normal breathing or circulation by applying pressure on, or to, their neck.
The case was adjourned and he was granted conditional bail, which included a ban on contacting his alleged victim, or posting on social media about the case to his millions of followers, ABC reported.
“This investigation is ongoing and detectives urge anyone with information relating to this matter, or any similar incidents, to call Crime Stoppers,” Western Australia Police said in a statement.
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Yung Filly has played over the years in charity and legends football matches.
The FA confirmed the videos had been removed.
It is understood that M&S has no direct endorsement deal with Yung Filly.
Filly fronts BBC shows Hot Property and Yung Filly’s Celeb Lock-In, and also appeared on Channel 4’s The Great Celebrity Bake Off in 2022.
He boasts 3.2 million followers on Instagram, 3.2 million on TikTok and 1.8 million subscribers on YouTube.
M&S and Yung Filly’s representatives have been contacted for comment.