Tales from the Secret Footballer

by Anon, Anon

  When your back is against the wall, you either crumble or you come out fighting. I went for the latter, aided admirably by the drugs I now take, pulled out my Rolodex and began calling people. And do you know what I found? I actually know a lot of people.

  So towards the end of last season I began to put some feelers out through my agent, while at the same time talking with a few acquaintances at some of these distant clubs. Inexplicably, that’s something I failed to do in the past, much to my cost. When I made my big career move, I neglected to check what the town was like, what the people were like, the manager, the facilities, the ambitions, the style of football, the expectations – nothing. It was crazy on my part because there were an awful lot of people I could have asked, but the club flashed up pound signs and reeled me in. I vowed never to make the same mistake again.

  WHAT ABOUT RUSSIA?

  I have to be honest: Russia has never appealed to me as either a country to visit or as a place to ply my trade. It’s probably a lovely place but for a huge area it’s noticeable how rarely it features in any 1,000 Places To See Before You Die guides. But at the risk of talking about something that I know very little about, that is probably due to its political history, its perception of the outside world and ours of it. It is more than likely a very misunderstood place that few casual observers have the inclination to try to understand anyway. So when I took a phone call last summer – from an American agent, ironically – it was hard to know how to react: would playing in Russia be a good thing or not? I didn’t have the faintest.

  Most of what we hear about Russia these days is to do with its considerable wealth, which stems mainly from its huge natural resources. “Oligarch” is now a word that everyone is familiar with. But it is obvious to most of us that people rarely become that rich without taking care of the right officials along the way, and those who fall out with the Kremlin seem to either end up in jail or go missing in action. So playing football in Russia isn’t exactly an opportunity that I’d go running towards with my arms wide open, because if it can happen to the richest in the land, then it can happen to anybody.

  There is a well-known story in football circles about a British player who left the UK to play for one of the big Moscow clubs. His wages were rumoured to be around £20,000 a week, which was fantastic given his age and what he’d achieved in his career. I remember hearing the story from one of his new team-mates that I bumped into in Dubai. The player in question had told him that he’d once been sitting in the changing rooms at half time, 2-0 down during a big local derby match. Suddenly, the door swung open and in walked the owner – it’s not uncommon for that to happen. He spoke in Russian for less than a minute before walking out again. One of his team-mates told him through a combination of sign language and cracked English that the owner had just offered every player a £50,000 bonus if they pulled off a win – and, amazingly, they did. They won the game 3-2 and this player actually managed to score. The first day back at the training ground after the game a man turned up, presumably sent by the chairman, with £50,000 in cash for everyone who played in the game. The scorers got £25,000 each on top.

  There’s nothing wrong with cash payments, of course, so long as the proper declarations are made, but let’s not kid ourselves that was going to happen here. The biggest problem was getting it back into the country: the player was advised to buy a car and then use the leftover cash to import it to the UK, as soon as possible.

  This practice isn’t unique to Russia, by the way. There is a chairman in the Championship who pays almost exclusively in cash. You’ve probably seen the pictures on Instagram and Facebook, or even in the papers, of players who have received a big pile of cash and have decided to pose with it placed over their crotch, for example. They make out that it’s cash they’ve just drawn out of the bank, but that money has been paid by the owner as a signing-on fee or a loyalty bonus. After all, it doesn’t say in your contract that every payment has to be made by bank transfer, even if that’s the way that most of working society operates today. The owner does the same when paying off contracts early. I remember a player moving from this club and a man in a beautiful Mercedes turning up at the hotel with a suitcase full of cash – literally a suitcase.

  The thing is, if an owner in Russia is promising sums like the ones I’ve just mentioned on a whim at halftime, the chances are that he’s bet an awful lot of money on the game, perhaps with the other team’s owner. As my friend and I sat around that pool in Dubai, the idea of huge piles of cash arriving out of thin air appealed to us until he pointed out that for every winner there is a loser. For all those matches when you receive a cash bonus for winning, there are others that you will lose – and when you lose the owner a lot of money, that puts your own wages at risk. On more than one occasion this player wasn’t paid, and what could he do about it? He took the money in the bag when he won, so he was over a barrel when he lost. He couldn’t say, “It’s not fair,” not in Russia. But it sounded as if it evened out in the end; in fact, I’m told that you’d have to be doing very badly indeed not to be considerably up on your basic contract by the end of the season.

  I can just about get my head around that. I’m not a prude about such things and I understand how certain businesses work. And on the plus side, there are a lot of quality players in Russia now and the clubs there are improving year on year. In fact, those who know about these things are tipping Russia’s clubs to make the biggest impact on European football in the next 10 years. A good friend of mine who knows Aiden McGeady told me that when he left Celtic for Spartak Moscow in 2010 he had every intention of staying for a year before returning to Britain to join a Premier League team. He’s still out there.

  But some things I just can’t ignore. I played with a black player from Africa, a nice fella though absolutely crazy. He had come to us from a big Russian club and the stories he told were horrendous. He had skinheads waiting for him outside the training ground most days – and these were “fans” of the club. Sometimes they caught him and he’d get a pasting; other times he’d get away in a pre-booked cab. That isn’t a place where I want to play football. I have many black friends and I don’t want to be around that.

  WHAT ABOUT CHINA?

  Damiano Tommasi, the former Roma player, is now an agent who works a lot in the Chinese market; there aren’t many deals for European players heading out to China where he’s not involved. I have to admit that I thought it would be easy to join them. It’s China, right? I’m British, played in the Premier League, pretty good reputation and still young enough: they love all that, don’t they?

  I phoned my agent, who is more than used to my spur-of-the-moment madness. He’s earned a small fortune out of me down the years, but also had to put up with a hell of a lot.

  “Look, take this in the way that it is meant,” he said, “but you struggled to live 200 miles away from where you grew up. How are you going to get on 10,000 miles away? I know there were ‘circumstances’ around that” – depression talk makes him uncomfortable – “but still. You don’t speak the language and you don’t know anything about the place. I have to be honest, mate: it’s not something I can recommend. Look, you’ve known me long enough now. It’s not about my payday – if you said to me, ‘I’ve considered all that but I really want you to look at it,’ then you know that I would. But I’m talking to you as a friend now” – he always says that when he’s stressing a point that he feels is important – “I don’t think it’s the right move for you. You’ve got young children to think of and it isn’t just you any more doing what you want to do.”

  He is very persuasive; something that I’d told myself not to fall for long before I picked the phone up. The trouble is that the longer the conversation went on, the more I wondered if my stubbornness was getting in the way of the right decision. They’re very good, these agents.

  In the end, I made a token effort to assert my position as a man who is in control of his life. “I hear what you’re saying, mate,” I sai
d, “and as ever I appreciate your input but I really feel that I’d like you to make some calls and at least find out what the situation is over there. I already know that in all likelihood I’m probably not going to China but it never hurts to have a couple of backup plans.”

  So he made a call to Tommasi and got a very clear answer. “Look,” Tommasi told him. “Really the clubs are looking for European players who are between 25 and 28. They’ll bend the rules for truly world-class players who can be used to attract names like Drogba and Anelka but, with all due respect, your player isn’t at that level and he isn’t between those ages any more.”

  “There really isn’t anything out there?”

  “I’ll give you an idea of how tough it is,” said Tommasi. “China has already turned down Inzaghi and Luca Toni. That’s what you’re up against.”

  I know when I’m beaten.

  WHAT ABOUT SCOTLAND?

  “A’reet bawbag?”

  “Hello, mate,” I said. “How’s things?”

  “Aye, no bad pal. I’m un Bob Marley’s hem in Jamaica and a family has just wucked in, all wearing ma shirt wi’ ma name on the back. Fuckin’ chances, pal? Tiny little house, two hours from the hotel and a got a tap on the shoulder and there’s a family of five asking me for a photo.”

  “Mate, it’s because you’re Scotland’s biggest export these days,” I laughed.

  “You’se a fucking pruck. What d’ya want, like?”

  “I’ve got an offer to go to Scotland and wanted your opinion.”

  “Oh Jeezuz, mate,” he said. “Is thut what ut’s come too? Nay bother, pal, fire away.”

  I don’t mean to cause offence, though I probably already have, but in recent years Scotland has become a destination for English clubs to send players on loan who aren’t good enough to play in the Premier League, in the hope that they’ll score a few goals in an easier league before some naivemanager back in England takes a punt. It’s happened time and again; I’m sure you can all think of a player who went from Arsenal to Scotland to Sunderland, and the manager who took the bait back in England. What makes Scotland perfect for this is its proximity and the fact that for the size of its league system it has two enormous clubs that are well known around Europe, possibly even the world. Certainly Rangers are well known in Gran Canaria, where as a young man I was kicked out of the Barry Ferguson Loyal bar. You have to be pretty badly behaved to get kicked out of a Scottish football supporters’ pub. There were no such problems at Linekers around the corner. Happy to have you, are Gary and his brother; just don’t dance on their bar – it’s frowned upon.

  The offer I had was from one of the two giants of Scottish football and came because I knew the coach there at the time. I was completely sold on the idea, actually. A chance to play for a huge team in the Champions League!

  I already had a view on playing in Scotland, and it was the same view as probably 99 per cent of Premier League players who look north of the border. It would be easier, it would be a chance to show off, to look better than everything around me and to win something – a league, a cup, medals – because that’s what it’s about, after all. So I rang this friend who used to play for Celtic for what I thought would be the final endorsement. I’m dropping the Scottish accent now because it’s painful to type like that.

  “It’s hard mate, really hard. Don’t go unless you’re in good nick, seriously, or you want to get your head down and work hard. It’s not a jolly, pal: these people up here aren’t grateful that you’re coming to play for them – it’s the other way around. It’s a way of life for them, and it doesn’t matter if you’re the greatest player in the world – if you have a bad game you are going to know about it, and not on Monday morning but 20 minutes into the game. If the team aren’t a goal up inside 20 minutes the boos will start, and if you’re a goal down it becomes a really tough atmosphere to play in. Even if you grind it out 2-1 the papers will be full of blood come Monday morning. There’s pressure everywhere, pal. You’ll not escape it. Doesn’t matter if you’re playing in an Old Firm game or against Raith Rovers in the Scottish Cup – everyone wants to beat you. I’ve seen some incredibly talented players crumble and leave the club after six months or a year because they just couldn’t cope with it every week.”

  “What about the home fans?” I asked.

  There was silence for a couple of seconds. “I’m talking about the home fans, ya fuckin’ twat!

  “The away fans are even worse. When I played for one of the big-hitters it was hatred, pal, and I do mean hatred. You’ve never experienced anything like it until you’ve played for one of them. I’d pull up to traffic lights in my car and I’d get one of three things: a thumbs-up, a middle finger or a fight … and that was anywhere that you went in the city. There were no safe havens – everyone was everywhere all of the time. You’ll be thinking, ‘Shall we go to dinner here tonight?’ and then you realise, ‘No, we can’t, because it’s a religious day or the owner of the place supports one or the other team.’ It’s constant, 24/7: every time you have a beer, every time you buy a paper, every time you leave the house, every person you meet, it’s Rangers, Celtic, Rangers, Celtic.”

  “Yeah, but it must be nice to win things,” I said.

  “Aye, of course, pal, but that doesn’t just happen. You don’t just win because you play for one of the big two – the effort that goes in is twice that of any other team. What people don’t realise is that as an Old Firm player you’d come back from a huge Champions League game late Tuesday or Wednesday night, a game in which generally you’d be chasing shadows for 90 minutes but because of sheer commitment, energy and the demands of the fans you’d get a positive result. Then you’d have Thursday off and travel to Dundee or Edinburgh on Friday to play against 11 players who are so fired up to beat you it’s a joke. It’s their biggest game of the season, the stadium is sold out, it’s on TV, and you’re completely fucked: you’re so tense, you’re begging for somebody just to bag a quick double to take the effort out of the game. It is draining to come back from playing a huge European team and see that you’re playing Motherwell at home on a Saturday at 3pm. Honestly, it’s so mentally tough and it’s tough on the body, too.”

  “So what are the Old Firm games like to play in?” I asked. There was a long, drawn-out breath at the end of the phone.

  “It isn’t just the game, pal. The build-up to an Old Firm match starts weeks earlier. The press have got it every day for weeks: interviews, pictures, past games, predictions … It’s relentless.

  “I was surprised when I played in them. Everybody told me that the games were just a case of smash and grab – I’d need to be fit and go around smashing people – but there was so much more to them. They were so quick. You’d get found out very quickly in an Old Firm game: I’ve seen good players play in one and never in another, and I’ve seen talented players unable to handle the occasion altogether. I did well in most of them, we had a decent record, and because of that the away fans hated me even more. You know what it’s like: if any player does well in their career they get abused by rival fans. I scored in an Old Firm game once and the fucking hate mail I got the next week was insane. I opened one letter and reached in to pull out what I thought was a letter; when I held it up it was a piece of toilet tissue that somebody had wiped their arse on.

  “For about a week after the game my phone was ringing non-stop – every hour of the day – and it was always the same: people singing sectarian songs. You start getting paranoid, looking out the window at cars driving past and people standing in the street. It was fucking scary. I was just about to get a new number and then, exactly a week after it had started, it stopped.”

  “What’s the standard like, though?” I asked. “Would I go mad in frustration?”

  “It is what it is, pal. Scotland gets a bad name because of the standard outside the Old Firm, or Celtic now, but remember Celtic are competing in the last 16 of the Champions League off the back of £2m in TV money, and what do your Sunderl
ands and your Stokes get? £65m? £70m? That’s pretty special if you ask me, and before long Rangers will be back up there and it’ll all start again. If you win something, well, you win something. You can only beat what’s in front of you, can’t you? And try telling the fans up there that it’s not as important as the Premier League. If you want to go, you should go, but if you’ve got any doubts you should go somewhere else because it will take over your life.”

  “OK, mate,” I said. “I’ll let you go. I can’t listen to Buffalo Soldier in the background any more.”

  “Nay bother, pal. I’m away to the wee bar at the hotel anyway for the gallon [eight pints], so I’ll speak to ya in a bit. A’reet, bawbag?”

  I don’t think Scotland is for me.

  WHAT ABOUT THE MIDDLE EAST?

  I’ll be honest: I didn’t have any offers to play from the Middle East, but then again, I wasn’t really looking. If I’d had a decision to make, then I could well have been tempted. But having nothing on the table in terms of playing doesn’t mean that there aren’t opportunities for an ageing footballer who fancies working in that part of the world. Abu Dhabi Media, which owns the TV rights to the Premier League in 27 countries across the Middle East, flies out current and former Premier League players to summarise the matches live in its studios, much in the same way that if Liverpool were playing Manchester City on live TV, Sky might draft in Craig Bellamy or Robbie Fowler for relevance and possibly some insider knowledge.

  Fees for this kind of punditry in Abu Dhabi start at around £10,000 for a player of my level – extremely nice work considering they fly you out, put you up in a luxury hotel and feed and water you over a long weekend. That makes it a little easier to work out why Rio Ferdinand turned down last season’s England call-up and flew to Abu Dhabi instead. If a player of my standard can command a basic fee of £10,000, first-class flights and access to a well stocked minibar, imagine what the big-hitters are demanding. £100,000? Even for half of that, it’s a nice weekend’s work. It is certainly not beyond the realm of possibility: Alan Hansen was on £40,000 a show as a pundit for Match of the Day, if his leaked contract is to be believed.