When the final whistle blows

Wednesday 13 March 2013

The golf course is not the only option for retired players. What lies ahead for today’s stars?

As Ryan Giggs reached the landmark figure of 1000 career games against Real Madrid and having signed a further one year contract  which will see him continue to play at the highest level into his 40s, it is fair to say that the longevity of his stellar career  is unlikely ever to be repeated. 

However in the case of the majority of footballers, such a career can only be a dream.

The end of a professional footballer’s career all too often heralds a crisis. After the adrenalin and adulation comes the monotony. There is no daily training and fitness regime, no game to form the focal point of the week, no roar of the crowd or clamour of the autograph hunters. There might well, in today’s world, be some money in the bank but many players have been the victim of their own success in terms of booze and gambling or bad financial planning and advice.  What should have been a warm afterglow of success, becomes an inability to live a normal life. It is little wonder so many players spiral into depression when they quit playing because they are simply not prepared for life after football.

Management, coaching and physiotherapy are traditional routes that former players take, as much as to keep them in the game as to provide a challenge and a sense of purpose. Others may try media punditry or business.

There is only so much golf you can play before you are left climbing the walls. That is where clubs and the PFA try to provide players coming to the end of their career options if they don’t want to go into coaching or stay in the game.

In many cases the PFA provide funding and heavily subsidise relevant courses in order to give players a chance to create a second career. The difficulty however is that players are still young men when they retire from playing and therefore need to fill the void left by playing with other active and meaningful roles.

Whilst Premier League players earn a good living and can enjoy a great deal of success, there are other players who spend 20 years plying their trade every week and are then surplus to requirements unless they have a coaching badge and become one of a growing number of former players who are ignored by the game.

Many player’s left school at 15 and went straight into football. It is like being institutionalised, one minute they are having everything done for them and the next they are at the end of their career expected to integrate.

It is little wonder so many ex-players are suddenly left with a massive void in their lives when their careers end.