‘BEING LET GO WAS SO BRUTAL’

EXCLUSIVE

BY RICHARD EDWARDS

ONE player who has experienced the heartache of being released from the academy system is

Gibson Bukele.

The Hackney Wick midfielder (above), 19, was at Watford until leaving the club in 2018.

The safety net that had nurtured him from the age of seven and throughout his teenage years then disappeared overnight.

He said: “When you get to the Under-18 age group, that’s when everything becomes more serious. I felt that if I had been let go at a younger age, then the club might have, not sugar-coated it, but not done it in the cut-throat manner they did.

“I was coming back from injury and the coach, who did want to help me and did understand my injury, had left.

“The football industry is constantly moving and the new coach, who did come in, told me he didn’t feel I was ready at the moment.

“Even though I had only been back training for two weeks after being out for almost a year.

“Personally, I didn’t think that was fair. I was only just turning 16 – and for three weeks I really didn’t know what to do.

“I didn’t know what to tell my family, what to tell my friends.

“You have this dream and then it just disappears in front of your eyes.”

Bukele is far from alone. The fact remains the odds of making it into the professional game remain incredibly slim.

It places young footballers in an incredibly difficult and vulnerable position when, as Bukele found, the career path you’re on is diverted or ends completely.

He added: “When you’re part of the club, you’re supported in every way.

“You’re given support with your studies.

“During my injuries, if I needed to speak to people about my emotional and mental health, everything was there for me.

“When I came out, all of that went out of the window.”

Bukele began to question the sport that had been the central pillar in his life for so long.

He said: “I just thought there was no point.

“If I was going to get that same treatment somewhere else, why would I bother?

“But I’m someone who always tries to get the positive out of everything.

“I still dream of being a professional footballer.

“It’s something that drives me every day. And I believe it will happen.”