Quotes & Sayings About Footballers

Footballers are an easy target. They are offered big lines of credit. Every sport is vulnerable; it's such a big gambling industry, and there are problems with syndicates in other countries. — Gordon Taylor

There is a history of footballers in my family; my granddad played for Notts County and my dad played at county level. — Matt Smith

Players know that they can trust me which is really important. They know that I had the ability to adapt to change, and they have seen that many times over the years. I think these are important parts of being in control of footballers. — Alex Ferguson

You can go down a list of footballers since the Premier League and I don't think David Beckham would probably be in the first 1,000. — Chris Waddle

If I had an ego as big as the Eiffel Tower, would I have won this many collective trophies? I know people like to talk about it. And O.K., I am not going to answer every story. But maybe I will let my collective trophies speak for themselves. I don't know many other footballers who have won as much. Do you? — Zlatan Ibrahimovic

Love is good for footballers, as long as it is not at half-time. — Richard Moller Nielsen

The only thing that's running well in Bulgaria is the Bulgarian Football Union. Unlike the BFU, many footballers here don't run, they limp. — Ivan Slavkov

People in the real world envy footballers. It is a fabulous life with rewards they can only dream of stuck in offices and factories doing jobs they hate. — P.J. Davitt

Too many pupils at schools in the U.K. want to have careers as footballers or TV hosts, or models, because that's what they're constantly exposed to as the heroes of our time. — Sugata Mitra

Footballers do get a hard time, and there is a lot of generalization going on. When you get to meet players and know them as lads, it's always a bit different. — Frank Lampard

He's one of those footballers whose brains are in his head. — Derek Johnstone

The trouble for today's footballers is they have too many distractions. We used to get our old players coming to watch training with football magazines in their hands. Now, more often than not, they are checking the share prices. — Franz Beckenbauer

I hope Stoke stay up this season, and stay up for long enough so that they can get enough money and buy some footballers. — Mick Dennis

When I was a footballer, I surrounded myself with footballers. We were all friends. But in Brasilia you don't know who your friends are. It can be a dangerous place. — Pele

I, as you may know, am no stranger to the organic courgette, but I still cannot work out who these gay footballers are. — Julian Clary

We can work together to produce better footballers for both FK Sarajevo and maybe Cardiff City and maybe even to play for other clubs. We hope this will be well received by everybody and enhance good relations between Malaysia and Bosnia. — Vincent Tan

Blake looked confused. So footballers were mostly the same the world over. "Football," Blake said. "Ya know ... football? — Lisa Henry

Footballers are going on strike? When can they start? — Ann Burton

I am not dealing with footballers, I am dealing with people. They have fears and worry about failing and making fools of themselves in front of 80,000 people. I have to make them see that without each other they are nothing. — Pep Guardiola

Footballers are kept in such a bubble that horse racing is a release. — Gordon Taylor

Footballers from the street are more important than trained coaches. — Johan Cruyff

Footballers can be like artists when the mind and body are working as one. It is what Miles Davis does when he plays free jazz - everything pulls together into one intense moment that is beautiful. — Lilian Thuram

There are hundreds and hundreds of women who are married to footballers, and we get to see a very small handful of them. They are all different individuals, and they choose the way they want to live their life or look, and I don't think it is really fair on anyone else to judge. — Louise Nurding

Where the costs of entry are minimal, there is a wide avenue of opportunity for those with little or nothing, which is why football is just about the most democratic sport of all: African and Brazilian footballers compete on a level playing field with their rich white European counterparts. — Martin Jacques

What they say about footballers being ignorant is rubbish. I spoke to a couple yesterday and they are quite intelligent. — Raquel Welch

I don't see the problem with footballers taking their shirts off after scoring a goal? They enjoy it and the young ladies enjoy it too. I suppose that's one of the main reasons women come to football games, to see the young men take their shirts off. Of course they'd have to go and watch another game because my lads are as ugly as sin. — Ian Holloway

Footballers today are forced to conform to a bodily aesthetic that in its rigidity and uniformity makes fashion models look as varied as snowflakes. This wasn't always so. Up until the 1980s most teams in all divisions had a couple of fat ones, a couple of little ones, at least one bandy one, one completely covered in hair, two weaklings and a chap with no neck. This was an era when you didn't need names on the backs of shirts in order to tell who's who, you could clearly identify them with your eyes half shut from the other side of the pitch. — Danny Baker

It is customary for columnists to complain about the excesses of Premiership footballers, whenever - as happens regularly - there is an incident involving some combination of sex, drugs, drink, violence and the constabulary. But modern footballers have a lot of both money and disposable time, a combination that has proved a recipe for personal disaster throughout history. And these incidents take place generally round night clubs rather than football clubs. The average Premiership player who turned up for work drunk would have a career-expectancy measurable in minutes. — Matthew Engel

People say footballers have terrible taste in music but I would dispute that. In the car at the moment I've got The Corrs, Cher, Phil Collins, Shania Twain and Rod Stewart. — Andy Gray

There are people who enjoy the life in England but don't pay a penny in tax, whereas my footballers pay more than half their income in tax. — Gordon Taylor

If you take the money away, a lot of the footballers would still be playing football. So, the money has nothing to do with it. — Alan Shearer

I run an academy in Spain for young footballers who are released by their clubs and who, in my opinion, deserve a second chance. It is a rewarding job for me, but one that also reveals many of the faults in the English game. — Glenn Hoddle

Ever since Pele's extraordinary talents blessed the world of football, black footballers have been accepted in the pantheon of the greats. But to achieve commercial recognition is somewhat different: it requires a form of adulation that also spells identification and role model. — Martin Jacques

If you look at the footballers, you look at our celebrity culture, we seem to be saying, 'This is the way you want to be'. We seem to be a society that celebrates all the wrong people. — Iain Duncan Smith

People with a lot of money aren't in the business of throwing it away, and those paying footballers' wages, organising parking spaces for dead sharks, and even, dare I say it, buying iPads, are doing it because, for them, it's worth the money. — Ian Watson

When I was in Dutch and Italian football, a lot of people looked at Manchester United, and when they were asked who was the best player, a lot of them said Paul Scholes. Much of what he did looked simple, but actually it was quite hard. Invariably he controlled the ball instantly and passed it straight on, keeping the game moving. He made inch-perfect passes across the pitch; he saw the gaps and could play the ball through them. So it didn't surprise me that so many top-class international footballers recognized his quality. — Edwin Van Der Sar

Professional footballers - those virile young stags of our modern culture - are near perpetual fountains of sputum. — Frank Skinner

I've had well-paid jobs, but in comparison to what footballers earn, I've not earned serious money. — Simon Weston

A friend at school was always being laughed at because his father emptied dustbins for a living. But those who laughed worshipped famous footballers. This is an example of our topsy-turvy view of 'success.' Who would we miss most if they did not work for a month, the footballer or the garbage collector? — David Icke

What you've got to realise is that footballers, and me in particular, have seen everything in the changing room. Everything. I've seen the manager kicking off with the players, the players kicking off with him, players fighting each other, managers fighting, everything. — Ryan Giggs

unless you take the view that footballers should be picked on their form as players, and not for personal considerations.' 'Ah!' said Mr Bowles, 'but that's what Vicar would call a counsel of perfection. People talk a lot about the team spirit and let the best side win, but if you was to sit in this bar and listen to what goes on, it's all spite and jealousy, or else it's how to scrape up enough money to entice away some other team's centre-forward, or it's complaints about favouritism or wrong decisions, or something that leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. The game's not what it was when I was a lad. Too much commercialism, and enough back-biting to stock an old maids' tea-party. — Dorothy L. Sayers

Ageing footballers never lose their commitment; they just lose their pace — Gary Lineker

Because I love football and I love the footballers. — Sepp Blatter

I think, just as footballers play better at home, maybe film-makers, too, create better at home, even though the rules of football are the same wherever you go. — Abbas Kiarostami

One of our problems is the culture of Brazil which focuses on men's football. Of course we would like to change that. Maybe one day we will have a strong competitive league instead of our women footballers always having to play abroad. — Marta

If you ask footballers to pick out the player they most admire, so many of them will pick Paul Scholes. — Alan Shearer

As footballers, we have time on our hands. Yes, we work very hard but we also have spare afternoons. — Joleon Lescott

In England, footballers are respected more, the game is more noble, there's less cheating. Every Spaniard who goes loves it - and comes back a better player. If I had ever left, it would have been to England. — Xavi

When politicians complain about the media, it strikes me as resembling footballers complaining about the umpire. — Tony Abbott

People talk about footballers and they get a bad press when not all of them deserve it. — Gordon Strachan

Footballers are more likely to work better if they get a pat on their back from the boss. A knife in the back is never the answer. — Gary Lineker

The money footballers earn today is incredulous — Bobby Gould

In the civilization of our times, it is normal, and almost obligatory, for cookery and fashion to take up most of the culture sections, for chefs and fashion designers now enjoy the prominence that before was given to scientists, composers and philosophers. Gas burners, stoves and catwalks meld, in the cultural coordinates of our time, with books, laboratories and operas, while TV stars and great footballers exert the sort of influence over habits, taste and fashion that was previously the domain of teachers and thinkers — Mario Vargas-Llosa

As a footballer's wife, I take great exception to the way we are portrayed in Footballers' Wives. — Karren Brady

Footballers are the most vulnerable people. They exude confidence, but inside, they're so lacking in confidence. They know they can lose form or be injured. This profession is so insecure, you wouldn't believe it. — Gordon Taylor

Darts players are probably a lot fitter than most footballers in overall body strength. — Sid Waddell

Footballers nowadays are controlling their image through their own Facebook page so its not the club that controls them anymore, they do what they want at anytime. — Emmanuel Petit

The footballers' wives I know, they're teachers, midwives. They want to do something useful. One is working at my son's nursery, on her hands and knees, in Converse and jeans, teaching kids to count. — Louise Nurding

Footballers are no different from human beings. — Graham Taylor

We bought good footballers. But many haven't got it, that football is a running and fighting sport. Against Bayern every team outdoes itself. And we do too little to counter that ... We need a couple of attack dogs. Sometimes I sit on the bench and think, 'Man, is this a friendly match?' — Otto Rehhagel

Now learning a bit more about footballers I think what they need to do well, is someone who really wants to stay in the background and just be a strong support. — Anna Friel

But I noted with real satisfaction how well ex-footballers seemed to have leadership qualifications ... I believe that football, perhaps more than any other sport, tends to instill in men the feeling that victory comes through hard - almost slavish - work, team play, self-confidence, and an enthusiasm that amounts to dedication. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

The Champions League is a big ambition, and all the footballers want to play in it; it is a very important competition. — Fernando Torres

Footballers wives are like leeches, feeding off their partners success. I don't want to be a footballer's wife. — Jamelia

The only thing I won't watch is darts. And I don't watch cricket. How can you like a game that requires you to take four days off work to follow a Test? And I don't really like golf. I know a lot of English footballers play, but I know that if I go with the club to play, sooner or later I will end up trying to smash the ball with my foot. — Thierry Henry

Everyone thinks footballers have it easy and at this time of year see loads of pictures of players relaxing on beaches and in bars but what they don't see is most of them will be doing their own fitness regimes. If you don't you will get back and you will be off the pace, might get injured and won't play football matches. — Colin Kazim-Richards

Actors, movie stars, rock stars, I can meet them with no worries - but with footballers I go weak at the knees. All of them. — Matt Smith

I feel sorry sometimes for these sportsmen and women who put in just as much effort as the footballers. For example, athletes train at least as hard as footballers but have to be happy if they can earn enough to finance a decent education. — Angela Merkel

We humans are naturally disposed to worship gods and heroes, to build our pantheons and valhallas. I would rather see that impulse directed into the adoration of daft singers, thicko footballers and air-headed screen actors than into the veneration of dogmatic zealots, fanatical preachers, militant politicians and rabid cultural commentators. — Stephen Fry

Fit men walking around and bathing, it would be just like being in Ancient Rome [on a footballers dressing room — John Barrowman

It is annoying. The work we do is not getting the credit it deserves because we are not winning silverware. It is unfair because I think we have more merit as a club than those who have built their teams with millions of pounds whereas Arsenal have brought in young footballers, who have come here to play a certain kind of football and who have developed. — Samir Nasri

You need dictatorships and poverty to produce great footballers. — Eamon Dunphy

Where I come from, all of us wanted to be footballers. We played all the time; that's all we did at school or wherever until it went dark and you couldn't see the ball. — Sean Bean

Footballers are slaves. I know this from the personal experience of being a footballer. — Sepp Blatter

People think footballers are all like robots - we can control everything on the pitch. But your heart is beating 200 times a minute; it's very, very physical. — Didier Drogba

Congratulations to Thierry Henry on a truly wonderful career. One of the great footballers of our time and a top bloke. Bonne chance. — Gary Lineker