Highlights

  • Many professional footballers don't actually love the sport and just see it as a job.
  • Examples include Ben White, Ronaldinho, and Gabriel Batistuta, who have admitted to not watching football or being obsessed with it.
  • Some players, like Dani Alves and David Bentley, have expressed a dislike for the football industry and have no intention of remaining involved after retirement.

To become a professional footballer, is it important to genuinely love football? You’d imagine that in order to reach the top, players need to be enamoured with the sport to a certain extent.

However, there are some professionals who, for one reason or another, aren’t anywhere near as obsessed with the beautiful game compared to the vast majority of their peers. This might be difficult for many fans to get their heads around. After all, how can someone who doesn’t live and breathe football end up reaching the top?

Well, it turns out there are more than a fair few examples of footballers who simply just see the game as a job. With that being the case, GIVEMESPORT has taken a look at 13 players who don't care about football.

13 Ben White

Ben White of England

Arsenal’s Ben White is one of the best current examples of a top-level footballer who, it's fair to say, doesn't love football. In an interview with Sky Sports in October 2021, the £50 million centre-back admitted that he didn’t grow up watching football and, as a result, wasn’t even aware of what type of player Patrick Vieira was.

White, who currently wears Vieira’s old No. 4 shirt at the Emirates Stadium, confessed: “No I never watched football when I was younger, still don't now. I just loved the game, I was always playing it - never watching it. So I don't know too much about older generations.“I know [Vieira] was a very good player. But I wouldn't know the details. I'm quite busy, I'm always doing something. I watch myself for analytical reasons. I watch England, maybe. I just wouldn't just sit down and watch a game.”

12 Ronaldinho

Ronaldinho

This one will come as a big surprise to most. Ronaldinho is arguably the most skilful footballer of all time, but he can’t be dealing with watching a full 90-minute match on TV. In January 2018, the Brazilian legend was quoted by The Sun as saying:

"I don't like to watch football, I like to play it. I can't stand in front of the television for 90 minutes, I only watch the highlights."

11 Gabriel Batistuta

Argentinian striker Gabriel Batistuta adjusts his hat during a training session

Gabriel Batistuta, one of the greatest strikers of the 1990s, saw football as a job and little more. “I do not like football, it is just my profession,” the retired centre-forward once told a TV show in his native Argentina. The co-writer of his autobiography, Alessandro Rialti, confirmed this was true in a 1999 interview with the Sunday Times, per Eurosport:

“The important thing about Batistuta is that he is not like other players. He is a very good professional who doesn’t really like football. Once he leaves the stadium, he doesn’t want football encroaching upon the rest of his life. He is a very sensitive and intelligent man. When we were doing the book, he came to my office and for five full days he spoke about his family and his life in Argentina. But when it came to the football and his career, he switched off. ‘The records are there,’ he said, ‘you can look them up’.”

10 Dani Alves

Dani Alves

Dani Alves, the second-most decorated footballer in history, returned to Barcelona at the age of 38 and became the squad’s lowest earner. You simply don't do that unless you have a certain type of love for the game. However, the Brazilian full-back once insisted that he has no intention of remaining involved in the sport after retiring, telling O'Globo, per Goal:

"I hate what surrounds football. I live in this world, but do not belong to it. When I leave football, I will put a backpack on and travel the world. It will be inevitable to watch football, but I won't live in it."

9 Gareth Bale

Gareth Bale

It became a long-running joke that Gareth Bale would much rather be on a golf course than a football pitch, but there was probably an element of truth to it. Don't forget, the Welshman announced his retirement in January 2023, aged just 33. When asked about Neymar and Kylian Mbappe in January 2018, he told ESPN:

“I don’t really watch much football. I’d rather watch the golf to be honest.”

8 Carlos Tevez

Carlos Tevez at Boca Juniors

Another (relatively) recently-retired pro who can fully emphasise with Bale and others on this list is Carlos Tevez. Speaking in October 2018, the Argentine forward admitted he can’t stand watching games on TV. During an interview with Clarin, per Marca, he said:

"If Barcelona and Real Madrid are playing each other, but there is a golf tournament on another channel, I'll choose to watch the golf instead.I don't watch any football on television. I don't like football, I've never been a fan of football, I simply like to play and to have the ball at my feet."

7 Benoit Assou-Ekotto

Benoit Assou Ekotto of Tottenham Hotspur looks on

Few professionals would openly admit that they’re in football purely for the money, but former Tottenham and Cameroon star Benoit Assou-Ekotto is one of them. The retired left-back told The Guardian in 2010. “A career is only 10, 15 years. It's only a job. Yes, it's a good, good job and I don't say that I hate football but it's not my passion." Peter Crouch best summed up Assou-Ekotto's indifference to the game on his podcast, saying:

"He was so difficult to manage, he didn't want to do anything you asked him to do. He literally would come in for pre-match meals with a little bag from Tesco. And you could go: 'Look, Benoit, you've got to eat what everyone else is eating.' But he goes, 'Nah I like my croissant.' He has his hot chocolate, and he'll have a cereal bar. And he just wouldn't get in the ice bath and he had no interest in football whatsoever. He'd turn up on a Saturday, we'd have a game against say Wolves and he'd have no idea who we're playing. He'd just turn up at the game and ask: 'Who have we got today?' We're playing Wolves a three o'clock and he didn't know who we were playing. And he was always eight, nine out of ten. Very rarely put a foot wrong."

6 David Bentley

David Bentley and Peter Crouch for Tottenham Hotspur

Assou-Ekotto’s former Spurs teammate David Bentley called time on his career in 2014, aged just 29, after his childhood love for the game was eroded away over the course of his professional career. The former England international, who went on to open up a restaurant in Marbella after hanging up his boots, admitted to The Mirror:

“To be honest, I was even having a few doubts about football when I was at Blackburn. It was weird. Kim was like: ‘You’ve got to buck your ideas up’. A lot of people were saying that and I remember walking my dog, thinking: ‘This ain’t for me’. I remember being a bit disappointed in myself. I was thinking: ‘You should love it, what’s the matter with you? You’re only saying this because you’re a little bit unhappy at the minute’. But in the end, I just got tired of all the bull**** that goes with it, people wanting you to sell yourself as something you’re not.”

READ MORE:

David Bentley: What happened to the former Arsenal & Tottenham player?

5 Bobby Zamora

Bobby Zamora at West Ham

Another former Tottenham player who wasn’t - and presumably still isn’t - in love with football is Bobby Zamora. Capped twice by England at his peak, the retired centre-forward told The Daily Mail in 2012:

“I’m not a massive football fan, really. I don’t watch games on an evening or anything like that. Quite a lot more players than (those that admit it) are the same. I’m not sure what I want to do after I finish playing but if it means watching football then I don’t want to get involved.”

4 David Batty

David Batty for England

Where on earth is David Batty, the former Leeds United and England midfielder, these days? Most of his former teammates don’t even know. Rio Ferdinand, for example, tweeted in November 2021: “Just sitting here thinking ahead of the England game….David Batty….what’s he up to now, anyone seen him? Great guy, top player…just disappeared though!” Well, perhaps he shuns the limelight because he doesn't care for the sport. Batty told The Guardian in 2007:

"The national game is boring and I've not been to watch any match since I finished playing. 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."

And was he that bothered after missing the decisive penalty for England against Argentina at the 1998 World Cup? You can probably guess the answer:

“As soon as we got in the changing rooms after the shootout, I was looking forward to getting home and seeing my kids — so football didn’t matter.”

3 Espen Baardsen

Espen Baardsen catches a ball for Tottenham 

Espen Baardsen, a USA-born Norway international, played in England with Tottenham, Watford and Everton in the late-1990s and early-2000s. The former goalkeeper decided to retire aged just 25 after losing interest in the sport. He told The Guardian in May 2008:

“I got bored of football. Once you’ve played in the Premier League and been to the World Cup, you’ve seen it and done it. It was dictating what I could do and when. I felt unsatisfied intellectually, I wanted to travel the world.”

2 Stephen Ireland

Aston Villa player Stephen Ireland

Remember Stephen Ireland? The former Republic of Ireland enjoyed a couple of excellent seasons with Manchester City and also went on to play for Aston Villa, Newcastle United (loan) and Stoke City.

The retired midfielder, who once admitted lying that his grandmother had died in order to excuse himself from international duty, posted on a social media website in 2007: ”Football Is S**T Why Did I get Stuck Doin It."

1 Marc-Andre ter Stegen

Marc-Andre ter Stegen

One of the world’s best goalkeepers, Barcelona’s Marc-Andre ter Stegen confessed in March 2020 that his football knowledge is awful. Indeed, the German international was quoted by The Daily Mail telling El Pais:

“People laugh when I tell them I have no idea about football. I don't see a lot of football, except when there are good games or when I'm particularly interested in one because I have a relationship or a friend. Sometimes they ask me for a player's name and I have no idea. In La Liga, for example, it happens to me with names. I don't know what they are called. But later, when they show me the video, I realise that I know exactly who it is. I remember better how they move on the field, how they kick or stand out. It is a bit strange, it happens to me when we analyse opponents.”