A minute, his name is being sung on the terraces, they treat you as a celebrity wherever you go, and the phone never stops sounding with requests for interviews and public appearances.
The next one is loading boxes stuffed with £ 400,000 of dirty money in a white transit truck or organizing the smuggling of 60 kg of cannabis through international borders and making his girlfriend and his friend act as drug mules.
It may sound like a particularly bad episode of a television police drama, but these are the real life stories of soccer players who have appeared in the headlines recently after resorting to crime.
Last month, the former Hearts and Hibs striker, James Keatings, 33, appeared in the Falkirk Sheriff’s court, where he admitted to having possessed and transferred criminal properties in the form of 78 packets of dirty money, with a total of £ 390,040, which was caught moving from his truck to another truck in a street of Wishaw.
At the beginning of summer, former Greenock Morton player Jay Emmanuel-Thomas, 34, was imprisoned for four years after being convicted of smuggling of £ 600,000 in Cannabis of Thailand to the United Kingdom.
After his arrest, the Scottish club fired Emmanuel-Thomas, who had previously played for Arsenal, Aberdeen and England at the youth level, and that he had recruited his girlfriend and his friend to smuggle the class B drug in the United Kingdom.
Jay Emmanuel-Thomas was imprisoned for four years for his role in a plot of drug smuggling
Emmanuel-Thomas made 23 appearances to Aberdeen after a successful spell in Livingston
The former heart striker James Keatings was arrested for money laundering crimes
Keatings and Emmanuel-Thomas bind to people such as former Hearts Player Paul Macdonald, who was imprisoned in 2023 for his participation in a drug and money washing operation.
These stories isolated from a handful of soccer players have become rogues or indicate a more widespread problem?
Jim Duffy, soccer coach and former player of Celtic and Dundee, has seen the struggles that many players have adapted to life after football. He said: ‘A young footballer at 21, 22, is flying, is playing well, is getting good money, travels around the world depending on clubs.
‘Footballers take care of themselves. Even in smaller clubs they are celebrities. They are not necessarily earning the really big money, but everything is made by them, and they have routine and discipline.
‘They go to a nightclub, and do not need to queue, they have demand. And then, suddenly, 10 years later, 12 years later, you take away all that and the phone stop sounding, and they can be a bit lost.
‘It is a really difficult situation to treat. They no longer have the adrenaline of playing in front of a great crowd, of being on television and being interviewed. They are thinking: «What do I do next? What is my skill set? All my life, I have kicked a ball. ‘And many of them fight.’
Emmanuel-Thomas began his career at Arsenal under the guardianship of Ursene Wenger
Can Duffy see why some players turn to crime to finance lifestyles that they can no longer pay? «You don’t know their personal circumstances, maybe something pushed them to that side,» he said, but emphasized: «It is a small number of players who get involved in it.»
The injuries and struggles with their physical and mental health saw Keatings to knock down the hierarchical order of clubs since its inception as a promising young player with Celtic, and later with hearts and Hibs, Hamilton, Inverness Caledonian Thistle, Raith Rovers and Forfar Athletic.
A football source that did not want to be named said: ‘That has a physical and mental cost in you and your profits, and maybe I have no other ability to close that gap. A player like Keatings could have gone from winning a maximum of about £ 3,000 or £ 4,000 per week to only £ 400 or £ 500 per week. Maybe he is thinking: «How do you win,» and make a bad decision «?
A bad leg in the legs in 2011 when he played for Carlisle United brought him home to the striker born in Dumfries, Rory Loy, who needed a B plan for when his career as a player came to an end. Now combine sales with work as a soccer commentator for BBC Scotland.
«The most important thing in the transition from football to the real world is that, as a player, you institutionalize,» said Loy, who began his career in the Rangers before lending to Dunfermline Athletic.
Known affectionately as Jet, Emmanuel-Thomas scored nine goals in 31 games for Livingston
‘In the Rangers they gave his breakfast, his lunch, his kit, they tell him where to be and when and what to wear, organize his trips and hotels. Everything is given to you on a dish and they treat you as an invaluable asset. Then, after football, all that disappears during the night. But you have become accustomed to making a good salary.
Having around football from an early age, many players are reluctant to start again in low works. Can Loy see why some players feel tempted by crime?
«I don’t see why someone would go on that route,» he offered. ‘I don’t think it’s an excuse. Football prepared me well, but I still need to go to work and earn money like everyone else.
‘In football, everything is the other way around. You want most of your money when you are young, it is not like other races where they accumulate you.
«Then, when you are young as a footballer, you can pay the truly pleasant car, you can get on the scale of the property before your friends and buy the pleasant house, and then, when you stop playing, money stops entering just at the moment that your friends may begin to win a lot.»
Another problem is the public perception that soccer players are rich, which leads some players to live beyond their means to maintain appearances.
Keatings turned out 70 times for Hibs after crossing the derby division, scoring 20 goals
«Many children don’t bother that, but some do it,» Loy said. «And you receive comments from people like:» Oh, you are no longer a footballer, «what can be difficult.»
Some feel that the system is broken, and club academies host hundreds of young people, only a small number of which will become professional players. At the same time, Scottish clubs buy more players abroad every year, which means that there are fewer opportunities for their own harvest young people who have often trained four or five times a week for more than a decade.
Some academy players may have neglected their studies to focus on football and suddenly are without a professional contract or qualifications or other career to resort.
Reflecting on the academy system, football commentator Richard Gordon said: «All the great clubs throw their networks as wide as they can because they do not want to miss a young talent, but very few of them will do it big.»
Peterhead FC Cammy Smith eaves, who began his career in Aberdeen and then moved to Dundee United, was forced to take a salary cut of 50 percent when, at 25, he joined Park Thistle in 2021.
He said: ‘He needed to find a way to win a good amount and maintain the lifestyle I had become accustomed to. I did a property course. I wanted a way to generate income so that when I finished my career as a player, I did not have to go out and hurry to a career as a delivery driver ‘.
Manager Jim Duffy insists that many players find it difficult when the dream begins to fade
Smith created Pitch2Property, a real estate investment company, with Peterhead teammate, Peter Pawlett, and together they offer advice to other players who seek to do the same. Smith now has 23 properties and is still playing part -time football.
Players like Keatings and Emmanuel-Thomas who have hit the rock background could look at David Martindale, whose criminal trip condemned to manager at Livingston FC is one of the most inspiring reinventions in the history of Scottish football.
Martindale, who never played football professionally before becoming a manager, was imprisoned for four years in 2006 after getting involved in organized crime, including money laundering and the large -scale cocaine supply.
After his release from the prison, Martindale obtained a degree in construction project management of the Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and, after voluntary years for Livingston while the club had financial problems, was appointed manager in 2020.
Speaking in 2020 about his own rubbing with crime, Martindale said: ‘My motivation was financial, purely greed. I grew up in housing schemes. You aspire to be the guy driving the BMW or the Range Rover; You do not want to be the guy constantly inside and outside the work that struggles to fulfill your rent. It was guilty and the only way to put it «correct», if that is the right word, it was to take my punishment. «
Reflecting on life after prison, he said at that time: ‘There will always be obstacles, but I don’t care honestly. I created the obstacles. Do I have to work so a little harder than the guy who has not been in prison? Probably, rightly.
For players who generally end up training at lunchtime and have a lot of time and money in their hands, the game can become a problem.
Livingston’s head, David Martindale, has been remarkably open about his previous crime life
Smith said: ‘There is a close relationship between game and football, whether you go to betting runners, casino or money cards on the back of the bus. There is always some kind of game and can get out of control.
Many within football think that they should be done more to support players with financial planning along with the preparation for a future after their boots hang.
The Independent Union for the players, the Professional Soccer Association of Scotland (PFA Scotland), offers courses that range from barbers, plasites and gas engineering to podcasting, barista skills and training courses. It also offers support for those who experience mental health problems along with financial education and consciousness courses, although collection rates can be low.
Chris Higgins, players services manager with PFA Scotland, said: ‘If you are earning a great money, it can be difficult to manage that transition for what comes next. We want to encourage players to consider it before reaching that transition and the point where they retire from football, and we are here to help players in all areas of life ‘.
Appearing in the Court at the beginning of this year, Emmanuel-Thomas lawyer said that the player was tempted to the crime during the «significant hard financial times» when he was out of contract, and said he fought with his transfer to Scotland to play football, which led him to «to temptation and a catastrophic error of trial.»
Judging Emmanuel-Thomas in four years in prison, the judge sympathized with little sympathy and told the player: ‘It is through his own actions he would no longer know him as a professional footballer; You will be known as criminal. A professional footballer who threw everything.
(Tagstotranslate) Dailymail (T) Sport (T) Soccer
