Welsh teen turns vintage soccer shirts into thriving business
A spare-room eBay side hustle grew into a Cardiff shop, with Eleri Williams aiming to pay for a law degree without debt.
Eleri Williams has turned Ballers CP, a vintage football shirt business built from her father’s collection, into a Cardiff storefront and a profit engine worth more than £35,000. The 18-year-old from Aberdare, in Rhondda Cynon Taf, opened in the Royal Arcade and Morgan Quarter after starting out in her parents’ spare room while studying for her GCSEs.
Williams launched the business in 2023 at age 15, first listing unwanted shirts from her father Will’s collection on eBay. What began as a handful of jerseys grew into a stockpile of more than 2,000 shirts stored in a spare bedroom, with inventory now valued at six figures. She has said the goal was always to leave university without debt, and that she is due to begin a law degree at Cardiff University in September.
Ballers CP now sells shirts priced from about £20 to £200 and sources stock from private sellers, bulk suppliers, online sellers and several Premier League clubs. Williams has said demand is being driven by nostalgia and social media, two forces that have helped vintage sportswear move from a niche resale market into a steady retail category with real margins.
Her rarest reported find was a PSG x Louis Vuitton 2006/07 away shirt, while another prized item, a rare Super Furry Animals-sponsored Cardiff City shirt, stays with her. Those pieces underline how deeply the business depends on scarcity, club memory and the collector economy, where unusual shirts can command far more than standard replicas or recent-season merchandise.
The company’s growth has also been shaped by travel and face-to-face trade. Williams has moved beyond eBay auctions into in-person events around the UK, then into a permanent shop in Cardiff, while her parents, Will and Nicola, help with emails and day-to-day administration. She has said she plans to keep running Ballers CP while studying law, extending a business that began as a way to pay for education into a parallel career built on football, fashion and the resale market.
This article was produced by Prism’s automated news system from verified source data, official records, and press releases, then run through automated quality and moderation checks before publishing. The system is built and supervised by the people who set the standards it runs under. Read our full AI policy.
Did this article answer your question?
