Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s son Archie is a budding football player and currently attends a £2,000-British-themed ‘soccer camp’ located over an hour away from the Sussexes’ Montecito mansion.
It emerged that the young prince, six, loves football after he was spotted wearing a red sports jersey in photos posted online by his mother, as the Duchess of Sussex made a last-ditch effort to promote her ‘intolerable’ Netflix show With Love, Meghan.
On Monday, Meghan, 44, gave her four million Instagram followers a sneak peek into filming the lifestyle series as she shared a series of snaps taken on set.
In one photo, her red-headed son can be holding up a clapperboard while another showed Archie and daughter, Lilibet, four, watching the various camera operations that were rolling.
In both the pictures, Archie can be seen wearing a jersey with the logo of ‘GB Soccer School’ – a football training facility located in Studio City, California, that is roughly 70 miles away from Harry and Meghan’s sprawling Montecito estate.
The soccer camp later seemingly confirmed that Archie was one of its students by reposting Meghan’s Instagram post on their own Stories with emojis of a smiling face and football.
According to its website, the organisation offers group classes for children between the ages of two and 10, and private coaching, as well as running summer soccer camps.
It is mandatory for parents to remain with their children for the entire duration of the class, as the website highlights it doesn’t run any ‘drop off’ programs – meaning Archie is likely always accompanied by either the Duke or Duchess of Sussex.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s son Archie is a budding football player and currently attends a £2,000-British-themed ‘soccer camp’ located over an hour away from the Sussexes’ Montecito mansion
It emerged that the young prince, six, loves football after he was spotted wearing a red jersey in photos posted online by his mother, as the Duchess of Sussex made a last-ditch effort to promote her ‘intolerable’ Netflix show With Love, Meghan. It appears students at the Californian ‘soccer school’ are all wearing the same number 10 jersey seen on Archie
The classes are further broken down into three categories – ‘Parent & Me’, ‘Open Classes’ for players over the age of 3.5, and the slightly more advanced ‘Skills Clinic’ – and they’re not cheap.
Since Archie is now over the age limit of the £238 ($320) ‘Parent & Me’ sessions – described as ‘an exciting way for parents to bond with their child’ – it would appear the young Prince is enrolled in the similarly priced Open Classes.
A 45-minute session is priced at £238 ($320) while a longer, one-hour class will set parents back by nearly £270 ($360).
Considering each cycle runs for the duration of eight consecutive weeks, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are likely forking over between £1,900 ($2,560) and £2,148 ($2,880) to the soccer school.
One-on-one coaching is priced at (£186) $250 per session, with parents required to purchase a minimum of eight private sessions.
The Californian sports facility also runs a ‘Just Play League’ for ‘kiddos born in 2019’ like Prince Archie.
It appears the six-year-old is part of one of the school’s league teams that compete against each other under the guidance of a coach, as Archie was seen wearing a number 10 jersey in Meghan’s post.
The website states that these league matches help Soccer Studio’s young players to learn about ‘different positions, taking throw ins, free kicks, penaltys and other key factors’ of football.
In one photo, Meghan’s red-headed son can be holding up a clapperboard while another showed Archie and daughter, Lilibet, four, watching the various camera operations that were rolling. Archie’s football jersey was clearly visible in all the snaps
According to its website, the organisation offers group classes for children between the ages of two and 10, and private coaching, as well as running summer soccer camps
The soccer camp later seemingly confirmed that Archie was one of its students by reposting Meghan’s Instagram post on their own Stories with emojis of a smiling face and football
The earliest sign of Archie’s emerging love for football came during Harry and Meghan’s bombshell Netflix docuseries about quitting the Royal Family that was released five years ago.
In one scene, the toddler could be seen on his father’s shoulders as Prince Harry kicked a football across the lawn of the Sussexes’ $5 million Montecito home where they have lived since leaving the UK.
If football is a nod to Prince Archie’s British roots, Harry and Meghan’s son is also embracing aspects of the family’s adopted Californian lifestyle after he was spotted learning how to ride the waves at a popular surf camp.
A video posted by Surf Happens, the Santa Barbara-based surfing institute that Archie is seemingly enrolled at, showed the six-year-old dressed in an orange t-shirt with the school’s logo on it and a wetsuit.
The clip, posted last month, showed Harry and Meghan beaming with pride while watching Archie take part in a talent show organised by the surf school – with the couple’s daughter Lilibet seen standing shyly with her mother.
Meghan’s latest Instagram post came after the second instalment of her lifestyle and cookery show premiered to scathing reviews, as critics branded the TV series ‘boring’ and ‘contrived’.
The Guardian’s Lucy Mangan gave season two of With Love, Meghan just two stars as she noted: ‘It’s so boring, so contrived, so effortfully whimsical that, do you know what? In the end, it does become almost fascinating.
A view of GB Soccer School’s training grounds, located in California’s Studio City
The Times Hilary Rose said With Love, Meghan’s flimsy concept made it an ‘entry for Miss World’ but did not deliver on entertaining television.
The Daily Mail’s Liz Jones felt the new season was ‘staged, fake, and dull’ but conceded Meghan was ‘genuinely earnest’ in the eight-part series.
‘What I love about Meghan – aside from the fact she makes a pressed forget-me-not necklace for Guy, her beagle (RIP) – is she seems genuinely earnest: it really is not an act.
‘She repeats the phrase “so sweet” often and seems warm with the crew. I adore, too, the day drinking; there is nowhere she goes without a coup of champagne.’
Jones added: ‘For me it’s televisual Valium, as soothing as warm chai sipped on a windswept beach.’
It was this earnestness that shone through when Meghan declared filming the series was ‘more fun than you can imagine’ in her Instagram post shared on the first September of Saturday – celebrated as Labor Day in the United States.
In one picture, Lilibet was seen sitting in the director’s chair on set, as she wore a pink jumper and navy blue polka-dot pants.
She was turned towards the entranceway of the room, as her ‘uncle’ and Meghan’s longtime makeup artist, Daniel Martin, was cheekily opening the door.
Meghan giving her son Archie, six, a sweet kiss in an earlier Instagram post
In addition to photos of Archie and Lilibet, Prince Harry also made an appearance in the slideshow as the Duke was seen posing for a picture with Meghan and season guest, Chef Clare Smyth, who made the food for their 2018 wedding.
The last slide included a playlist that she had made for filming, which included hits like Dancing in the Moonlight by King Harvest and Into the Mystic by Van Morrison.
‘Filming season two of “With Love, Meghan” was more fun than you can imagine,’ Meghan wrote in the caption of the Labor Day Instagram post.
‘Part of how we kept the vibe alive? Music. Between set ups I would play a song from my phone, and today I wanted to share some of the favorites I kept on rotation!’ she revealed.
‘Add them to your playlist, press shuffle, and enjoy! Happy Labor Day weekend! Work hard, play hard.’
