CRAIG RITCHIE
One glimpse at Will Haining’s career would have you thinking he had hit the jackpot.
A star on the pitch, with the model wife and the happy family, the former St Mirren man appears to have lived out every youngster’s dream in a career packed with success.
But, through gritted teeth, he has had enough.
Still only 36, Haining has turned his back on the game for good after falling out of love with the goings on behind the scenes and what he calls the dark, unseen side of the sport.
Although he hung up his boots two years ago, a brief flirtation with management wasn’t enough to convince him that a job in coaching or on the touchline was what the future had in store.
He had grown tired of what he dubs the lies and the conniving.
He simply no longer wanted to be a part of it.
It’s a long way from his glory days at Oldham Athletic and St Mirren but Haining insists the sport has a lot of work to do to safeguard players.
The constant battle for contracts and deals continues to leave so many on the scrapheap each and every summer as clubs ring the changes. But it is the uncertainty that goes along with it, the lack of support and the lack of communication, that he had grown tired of by the time he had retired.
“I have no plans to go back, I really don’t”, Haining told Express Sport, “I’ve had my time.
“I absolutely love football, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that’s not the case.
“I owe my life to the game. I’ve made good friends that will be friends for life.
“But there is an ugly side to it, an ugly side that I don’t really want to be a part of.
“I’ve had managers trying to stitch me up. I’ve had moves blocked by managers who had blatantly just reneged on agreements that we had made.
“There is so much conniving that goes on, deceitfulness and an untruthful nature that goes along with everything.
“I like to think that I am pretty straight. I’ll give everyone a chance and take them at face value and hand them my trust. But the nasty undercurrent is impossible to avoid. “There is no honesty anymore. “With the greatest of respect, most teams don’t pay players hundreds of thousands of pounds each and every week. The players there will make a good living, and they get paid well for playing football.
“But these other guys won’t earn enough to retire once they hang up their boots. These aren’t lifechanging sums of money that will allow them to just pack it all in when their time us up.
“The money they earn pays their bills, it covers their mortgage and their car like everyone else.
“Clubs sometimes forget that they are dealing with people’s lives when they leave players hanging on the phone waiting to see if they are wanted anymore.
“Their livelihoods are at stake – meanwhile, the player is treated like a commodity, thrown away when the next best thing comes along.
“You quickly become yesterday’s news, you are pushed to the side.
“Clubs hide behind things, some managers hide behind things, and they are rarely honest.
“It’s a part of the game that I grew to hate. I don’t think it’s right.”
The centre back proved to be a