Craig Bellamy

[SebastianBlue]

Skint apparently...

Cardiff City and Wales legend Craig Bellamy declared bankrupt

Welsh football icon Bellamy issued a stark warning to young footballers as he confirmed the news

www.walesonline.co.uk

This is actually the rule—not the exception—in professional sport, unfortunately.

The majority of players aspiring to be pros are skint fairly soon after retiring, whether they “made it” or not. An estimated 40% of footballers are bankrupt within 5 years of hanging up their boots. Nearly 80% of American football players are bankrupt or suffer serious financial issues within two years of retirement. Around 60% of NBA players are broke within five years off the court. Rugby players famously make a fraction of athletes in other sport and are usually struggling before they even retire. The list goes on, with only a few exceptions (tennis being one with lower rates of bankruptcy and financial distress, largely because it is a higher socioeconomic class sport to begin with, which skews results significantly).

And it is all largely down to what Bellamy warns against in his interview: they are not taught how to manage their personal finances and often leave it up to incompetent or untrustworthy people to do it for them. Or it is managed competently, as is the case for players at City now, but that still leaves them not feeling developing the skills needed to take care of it themselves once they retire.

Yes, many do squander the money whilst playing or shortly after retiring. But a lot of that is also down to poor education and lack of early intervention itself. Just as many work hard, try to do things the “right way”, but still find themselves in financial difficulty later.

Many of the players already come from lower socioeconomic class backgrounds, which tends to mean they have little—if any—exposure to managing large amounts of money and all that comes with it. Even those that come from more middle class backgrounds (perhaps even with fathers that were ex-pros) struggle, as their focus is always on the football, not managing their income and expenses. And investing is absolutely not something they tend to think about much, for good reason, which can make them an easy target for the less honest and more manipulative among us.

I have advocated for sometime that all footballers, in order to sign a professional contract, should have to complete a financial management certification (just like badges) and their money should be required to be managed by a registered financial fiduciary.

But that is unlikely to happen, because there is far too much money to be made in exploiting footballers, both by agents, club officials, entities looking for investors, and so on.

In many ways the system is based on the talent pool being ignorant and/or oblivious to the money side of things.

Which is very sad, all things considered.

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

This is actually the rule—not the exception—in professional sport, unfortunately.

The majority of players aspiring to be pros are skint fairly soon after retiring, whether they “made it” or not. An estimated 40% of footballers are bankrupt within 5 years of hanging up their boots. Nearly 80% of American football players are bankrupt or suffer serious financial issues within two years of retirement. Around 60% of NBA players are broke within five years off the court. Rugby players famously make a fraction of athletes in other sport and are usually struggling before they even retire. The list goes on, with only a few exceptions (tennis being one with lower rates of bankruptcy and financial distress, largely because it is a higher socioeconomic class sport to begin with, which skews results significantly).

And it is all largely down to what Bellamy warns against in his interview: they are not taught how to manage their personal finances and often leave it up to incompetent or untrustworthy people to do it for them. Or it is managed competently, as is the case for players at City now, but that still leaves them not feeling developing the skills needed to take care of it themselves once they retire.

Yes, many do squander the money whilst playing or shortly after retiring. But a lot of that is also down to poor education and lack of early intervention itself. Just as many work hard, try to do things the “right way”, but still find themselves in financial difficulty later.

Many of the players already come from lower socioeconomic class backgrounds, which tends to mean they have little—if any—exposure to managing large amounts of money and all that comes with it. Even those that come from more middle class backgrounds (perhaps even with fathers that were ex-pros) struggle, as their focus is always on the football, not managing their income and expenses. And investing is absolutely not something they tend to think about much, for good reason, which can make them an easy target for the less honest and more manipulative among us.

I have advocated for sometime that all footballers, in order to sign a professional contract, should have to complete a financial management certification (just like badges) and their money should be required to be managed by a registered financial fiduciary.

But that is unlikely to happen, because there is far too much money to be made in exploiting footballers, both by agents, club officials, entities looking for investors, and so on.

In many ways the system is based on the talent pool being ignorant and/or oblivious to the money side of things.

Which is very sad, all things considered.

I think the PFA have a lot to answer for. They're supposed to be the 'players union' but they don't seem to be doing much in the way of educating players in being financially savvy.

 

[aguero93:20]

Best of luck Bellamy.