The three stages of football: Part Two

LAST week we discussed football’s three fundamental stages for a player: development, performance and the grand closing or departure of one’s career. And we explored how these three stages impact a footballer’s life – before, during and after – a pro career. It is a known fact that footballers face many different challenges in the preparation of and during the transition to the post-playing career and this week we again interrogate these challenges and how they can be managed.

Last week I spoke about the need for ‘handlers’ – coaches, agents, managers and whoever else is involved in the general management of a footballer’s career – to be cognisant of the need of a grand closing in their lives. And the need to have at least one of these so-called handlers taking more than a passing interest in what happens to them when their legs cannot carry them anymore and they have to retire.

What do footballers do when they retire? At the end of a professional footballer’s career, wealth and optimism can soon be replaced by bankruptcy and disillusionment. We must investigate how players handle the transition to a new life.

Ask any football fan to imagine how a Premier League footballer spends his days after retiring and the perception will be something like this: women, fast cars, drinking, and many other social ills.

The professional life of a footballer is relatively short. With the majority turning professional at between 16 and 20 years of age, many of these will be retired by the time they’re between 36 and 40.

Those that aren’t will most probably be playing in a lesser league than they played in at their peak apart from some goalkeepers whose top-flight careers can last well into their forties.

So, with another 30 years or so for most footballers till the state retirement age, just what do they do after they retire? What do we expect the handlers to help footballers do when they retire? What options are available for footballers when they retire? These are the questions that we need to find answers for we are to control this ever-growing malady of struggling football retirees.

Let’s explore some of the options that could be available for footballers if there indeed had a grand closing to their careers.

Football Management

Football management and coaching is the most obvious choice of career for a former footballer. Clubs these days are very conscious about equipping their players with skills that they can utilise to earn a living once retired, so many players begin training to be a football coach/manager whilst still playing.

They do this by going through the coaching pathway provided by the Football Association. Once retired, they then find a role at a club as a coach or manager.

It might be expected that the better the level of football a player has played at, the better the coach/manager they will be.

There have been some top-flight footballers who have become trophy-winning managers such as Barcelona and Spain international Pep Guardiola in Europe who is regarded as the best manager in the world and we have produced our very own quality players who became coaches over the years, some are among the finest this country has ever produced – on and off the field.

However, many of football’s most successful managers did not play professional football at a high level or even professionally at all.

Champions League and Premiership winning, Jose Mourinho, for example, was a translator at Barcelona before moving into management and had never played professional football. Neither did Charles Mhlauri, but he won titles and even successfully coached the national team.

The reason for this is that playing football and managing football have two very different skillsets, resulting in some players having a far more successful coaching career than a playing one.

Another Club Based Role

Not all players believe that they’re cut out to be managers or even coaches, but they still want to and can keep a hand in the daily running of the club where they made their name.

Nowadays plenty of clubs use ex-players in ambassadorial roles, sending them to meetings with UEFA, FIFA and other representative organisations for things like cup draws or executive meetings.

Another club-based role that some players turn to is that of scout. They may not believe that they can coach a player but they may feel that they have the ability to spot a good one and draw the manager’s attention to them. Scouts often have specialised areas of interest, perhaps from their days playing in different leagues and/or countries.

Other jobs that can be pursued are welfare and kit manager, match/performance analyst, training ground manager, physical trainer, talent scout, player agent/manager. But players need to be advised of these options BEFORE they retire and prepare adequately for them. Football Pundit

When it comes to football those that can, do and those that can’t, criticise. Alongside joining the coaching staff becoming a pundit is perhaps the most common route that ex-players head down. It’s virtually impossible to turn on a football-based programme without seeing a former player offering their opinion of the game at hand.

Gary Neville of Manchester United, Jamie Carragher of Liverpool and Thierry Henry of Arsenal are all examples of former players who have, to a greater or lesser degree, made a success of becoming a television or radio pundit in the days since their retirement from football.

It’s not just the main sports channels that need former players to offer their opinions, either.

Nowadays the proliferation of a club’s own media means that ex-players can talk on the radio, write for the website or present on the television owned and operated by the club they used to ply their trade for.

Like I said last week, given that there is a handler in development and handler in performance, footballers need one for the grand closing, the player’s finale.

Footballers need someone who will be responsible for this transition, to take responsibility and take care of these people before the psychological murder that inevitably creep into a player’s life.

God bless and let’s keep loving football!