A TEENAGER from Anglesey says he will "carry on" after his popular football magazine suffered a setback.

Iwan Pritchard, 17, from Amlwch took over"SidelineScouted" from a close friend in September 2017.

The Ysgol Syr Thomas Jones pupil says he realised the project, which highlighted football's young prospects worldwide, had potential.

"I was on a family holiday when I came across what my friend was doing," Iwan explained.

"Two days later, I joined in on the operations as a social media admin, tweeting all the latest news regarding U23 football.

"By September, my friend was working full-time and it was at this point I took control of SidelineScouted.

"I quickly realised that it had the potential to be a little business for myself to run alongside my school studies."

Thanks mainly to the project's large Twitter following, contacts began to build up and after many online articles about players and academies were published, a print magazine soon followed.

European giants Benfica (Portugal) were amongst those to get involved with Iwan's project and the magazine itself was distributed as far abroad as Australia and the United States.

"I have worked with all kinds of footballers in the last year or so," Iwan said.

"Ranging from Jacob Gardiner-Smith; whose transfer to Zenit St. Petersburg raised some eyebrows within UK media outlets all the way to RB Salzburg's Samuel Tetteh whose story to Europe has been nothing short of a miracle.

"In terms of clubs, I worked extremely closely with Portuguese powerhouse SL Benfica, one of our representatives flew out to Lisbon in the summer to carry out interviews with their youth staff, one of which is now Thierry Henry's assistant at AS Monaco. We also have close ties with Russian giants, Zenit St Petersburg.

"We have written about hundreds of players and clubs on our website, ranging from Bayern Munich to Palestine's controversial national team."

The budding SidelineScouted business suffered a setback in recent weeks when an unauthorised match clip was unintentionally posted on the Twitter account, resulting in suspension.

Despite the blow, Iwan says he will be returning with a new look magazine in early 2019.

"I parted ways with what was left of SidelineScouted in late October to start working on my own project with a few close friends," he said.

""The account suspension was a real shame because it felt as if a year's worth of work was wasted and I had nothing to show for it.

"I wasn't going to let what happened bring me down though. I like making things and so I knew that I had to carry on."

Over the last month, Iwan has been working on The Scouted Hub - a multimedia content creator for football industry clients specialising in scouting, player development and footballers of all levels.

"I and my two business partners, Harry and Hanu, are looking to build one of the most knowledgeable teams within the industry.

"It's honestly surreal that I'm at the helm of this massive operation, it's a dream and I love every minute of it.

" I want to be able to offer full-time employment to a number of people and work with some of footballs biggest names. I also wouldn't mind a nice car!"