AuthorJeffEyesRimmer Playing football for a living is something many of us have dreamt about, becoming the hero for your home town side, winning the FA Cup, being paid vast amounts of money to kick about ball around the field and be adored. It is a wonderful game that we love and wish could play as well as our favourite players. But what are the drawbacks of being a professional football player? Are there any? I suspect many people reading that sentence would scoff at it. How can there be any drawbacks to being paid to play football? What brought me to this question was the scapegoating and general abuse that was sent Raheem Sterling’s way after England were knocked out of the Euro 2016 tournament (a while back now I grant you). Now I am not going to defend the players performances at the Euros but, and this shouldn’t be the case that we need reminding, we are talking about a young (he’s 21) man here. The various tabloid newspapers ran rather unpleasant headlines about him purchasing a house for his mother. The general feel of the abuse was that this 21 year old that is paid large sums of money, that is the most expensive English player ever and that had failed to shine at the Euros should somehow feel more ashamed, be less enthused with buying a house for his mother. Put simply that this 21 year old was a failure, an overpaid one at that too. Now although I feel the money in football is obscene it is a supply and demand business, if someone is willing to pay large amounts of cash then that’s the way it is.
Sterling also went and sought professional help to cope with the pressure and was inexplicably criticised for doing so. Here was a young man trying to cope with the huge weight and yet it was seen as a weakness. I applaud him for doing it too. There are too many instances of footballers failing to deal with the pressure and turning to the bottle or worse for relief. Thankfully it appears the new management at Man City has given the lad a bit of confidence and the start of the season has been a good one for him. I think we still need to come back to the fact that he is 21! That’s quite a bit of pressure on a young man; think about how you might have dealt with it at that age. I don’t think I would have handled it very well and we see it time and again for youngsters in the game. This situation is played out constantly, how many times have you seen players singled out and brought low because of scapegoating? Not particularly pleasant to think that all your clubs troubles will be laid at your door if things start going wrong. The pressure on players to succeed in the goldfish bowl is huge but quite often players are in a bubble from a young age to into their early thirties. They are in the youth academies and training day in day out with the clubs and then suddenly offloaded when they reach around 35 years of age (if successful). I am really only getting into the interesting parts of my career and I’m 32, don’t think many of us would appreciate being considered useless at that age. Not all players can become coaches and pundits and most will fall out of the game altogether. After living in the football world for so long many find it hard to gain work outside of that bubble. The bubble issue can lend itself to another issue. The vast sums of money and large amounts of down time can breed more undesirable problems which I alluded to earlier, drinking, drug and gambling abuse to name the main ones. The names are well known: Michael Chopra losing it all to gambling, Alcoholism for Tony Adams, Paul Gascoigne, Paul Mcgrath, George Best, drugs for Adrian Mutu. The celebrity can become consuming. What of the players released and then having an uncertain of future, not knowing where the next pay check is coming from? This is more for lower league players and older players but to suddenly be cast aside can leave metal scars and depression. Discussing long term problems with mental issues is always difficult but more obviously injuries, ones that caused long term problems are also worth noting. Some injuries leave lasting scars, but even surgery on numerous injuries over a career can leave long term effects. Even if you are adored while playing for a club there are unending problems involving abuse from fans – racism and homophobia are still rife in the game. Many parts of the world still have issues with this and even in countries that had thought that they had stamped it out it raises its ugly head, the championship playoff final for instance. But having ‘fans’ (I use the term lightly) throwing bananas at non-white players, anti-Semitic chants at Spurs fans, homophobic chants at homosexual players, all leave lasting effects. None of us would want or tolerate that in our work places. And finally, what about those lovely tabloids. Just think, you have managed to get yourself a gorgeous partner but then the newspapers go and start posting pictures of your partner from 5 years ago while they were on holiday with another person. Wonderful stuff and none of us would be best pleased. While history is always part and parcel of relationships having old flames issues dragged up would never be pleasant. So yes playing football professionally is a privilege and a fantastic job but we need to remember that they are people too, each susceptible to the same issues that the rest of us less gifted with the ball at our feet are. |
AuthorsJust Some Fans Writing About Football. Archives
June 2018
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