It may be hard to believe for some, but not all professional soccer players loved their jobs. A special Guardian report, “Footballers That Don’t Really Like Football,” finds there are plenty, in fact, and a few famous ones at that. Take Tottenham and Watford’s former American goalkeeper Espen Baardson: he was once heralded as Norway’s next first-choice goalkeeper (he has dual-citizenship), but at the age of 25 Baardsen retired, saying he lost interest in the game. “It is a great myth that football is easy,” Baardsen said. “It’s quite miserable compared to what I have now.” He now works for a London-based hedge-fund.
An article from the Scotsman paints a picture of former Celtic player Paul Telfer as being particularly detached from the game. “A friend told of [Telfer’s] tendency not to talk about football during their regular four-ball on the golf course. He ended his insight with the quite damning, ‘I sometimes get the impression he prefers playing golf to football.'”
David Batty, a fantastic central midfielder for Leeds United and England in the late 1990s, revealed a particular dislike for the international game. “The national game is boring. And I’ve not been to watch any match since I finished playing,” he quipped. “I can never understand anybody paying to watch it, never mind going all the way across the world to see it. You want to be entertained.”