Football is packed to the brim with players who won’t grow up; who have bodyguards, followers, hangers on, family and friends who follow them everywhere and leech off their ridiculous earnings: this is the modern entourage and most footballers (particularly the British ones) have them to some degree. One thing I have noticed is that all of the players that have these people following them round all appear to be ill-educated. Did you ever see Bolo Zenden, Didi Hamann or Sami Hyypia being pampered, looked after and followed around be half a dozen people? No. Because these are intelligent, well-educated men that can speak 3-4 languages and are comfortable with standing on their own two feet once they’ve hit adulthood. Outside of football, they have lives and will continue to after retirement. At the opposite end of that spectrum you have somebody like Paul Gascoigne: a man who, without his hangers on; without football and without the guidance of a club, has devolved into the picture boy for alcoholism: a pathetic mess, unable to take care of himself. Even when he was still playing, Gascoigne struggled to follow diets and advice and was easily led by people with an IQ barely higher than his own. It all points to being poorly educated; here is a man who’s only language has ever been English and even his grasp of that is questionable.

For more modern examples, you could look at Cristiano Ronaldo and David Beckham: two talented men who – since their talent was discovered at a young age – have been wrapped in cotton wool and never experienced the real world. Both are trailed by minders and PA’s; people to pay their bills, organize their lives and in all probability, schedule their toilet breaks. Without harping on about it, these two men are renowned for being ill-educated. They were never given the opportunity to grow up through school, learning ordinary life-skills along the way. Primarily, because they probably didn’t go to school once a career in football appeared likely.  Though I can’t quite remember the source, there was a Premier League footballer who, not so long ago, admitted in an interview that he’d never actually carried cash before, as his minders usually paid all his bills, so he had no idea what to do with the various denominations.  That actually scares me.

With the two related points in mind, you can only look at the clubs to take a lot of the responsibility. After all, these days young footballers sign up with top clubs from as early as 8 or 9, so they should be encouraging them to attend school and get a normal education. In fact, they shouldn’t just encourage it; they should actively make sure that they are getting an acceptable level of education. You only have to look at Dinamo Kiev as an example: for years they acted as club, school and home. With trainees being coached, educated and living at the club’s academy for periods of time; growing up together and learning everything they needed for the future as a footballer and as an adult. Given that Ukrainian players have starred all over Europe for years now and have no trouble learning new languages and adapting to new cultures, there would certainly seem to be something to this proven formula.

I am not for a moment suggesting that having a few GCSE’s will stop footballers from becoming prima donnas or brain-dead, ball-kicking drones but it certainly wouldn’t hurt them.

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