Stiliyan Petrov’s dream job was interrupted by cancer; now he wants to help soccer stars plan for the future
And when a career inevitably comes to an end, many have to player reinvent.
For this reason, former Bulgarian international Stiliyan Petrov, together with other ex-professionals such as Gaizka Mendieta, Emile Heskey and Michael Johnson, founded the Player 4 Player organization players helping them make informed decisions about their future.
Former Aston Villa captain Petrov tells CNN Sport in disbelief about players who kept asking when the next payday was.
“I used to have teammates talk to me before we got our money, and my question was, ‘You make a large amount of money every month, every week… Why do you want to know when you’re going to get your money?'”
“They say, ‘Oh, whatever I get, I just put it down. I have a mortgage, payments, a car, I have my girlfriend.’ So at the end of the conversation I said, ‘What are you putting aside?'”
Petrov says he got his own financial knowledge from teammates and friends. He says that there are players who, despite making “incredible amounts of money”, now “have to go begging for work”.
When he was still a player, financial advisors came and went on the training pitch,” said Petrov.
There were “a lot of people who promised so much but never delivered,” he says.
But when you’re young and making good money, it’s sometimes difficult to spot potentially bad investments.
“You have to be very, very careful, even at a young age,” warns Simon Barker, deputy chief executive of the Players’ Football Association and a former Premier League player for Queens Park Rangers.
“Sometimes in life you have to experience problems to truly understand and learn. And unfortunately that’s what happens in life,” adds Barker.
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Unfortunate twists of fate
In early 2012, just as he was negotiating a new contract with Aston Villa, Petrov was diagnosed with acute leukemia and his career was unexpectedly cut short.
Although he was financially secure, Petrov was not yet psychologically ready to accept the end of his career.
“Everything disappeared,” he said of his illness. “I wasn’t ready, I wasn’t prepared. Physically and mentally it’s really hard… I didn’t have time to settle in and think about what I’m going to do next. I just had to fight for my life and that did made it even more difficult for me.
Petrov underwent two intensive rounds of chemotherapy over three years, which took their toll.
“I was unable to go back to work, study… and do any kind of exercise because I wasn’t fit enough.
“I had to take six, seven years to make sure I got back to being who I wanted to be, what I wanted to achieve.”
According to Petrov, players who enjoy the game and are in the spotlight often ignore the signs that their careers are coming to an end.
“We have our ego, everyone talks about us. We have the attention, everyone pushes us, we have the adrenaline, we have a goal,” says Petrov.
According to statistics from the world footballers’ union FIFPro, 72% of professional footballers have no education beyond school and only 14% have completed vocational training. Only 12% have a college degree.
In a sport where the average contract length is just 22 to 23 months, advocates say footballers should think more about what they can do outside of the game.
There are many options to explore after your career ends, says Petrov.
“We have great transferable skills that many other industries expect from former athletes – with their leadership skills, their communication, their desire and their work ethic. That’s something that a lot of players don’t think about,” said Petrov.
The PFA charity supported 1,397 people with further training in the 2019-20 calendar year, often in the form of scholarships, to support young professionals for their future careers.
For Barker, his retirement from football transitioned almost seamlessly into his work at the PFA, where he has worked ever since. His duties include speaking to current players about retraining for a second career.
“The transition is a big problem, especially in the first two years,” he says. “The people who seem to be making the transition to a second career more successful are the ones who have put themselves in a position where they are ready for it, i.e. have taken courses.”
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Football careers are short – between 10 and 15 years if you’re one of the lucky ones. Petrov’s childhood dream was to become a footballer at the highest level, but he still longs for more.
“I wanted to learn,” he says defiantly. “I wanted to give myself the chance to be something someday.
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Those: edition.cnn.com
2023-12-27 13:42:37
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