290: Benoit Assou-Ekotto, Tottenham Hotspur, Topps Match Attax Trading Card Game, 2009/10

“How do you look upon being a professional footballer – is it a job of work or a career?” Hunter Davies put this question to every member of the Tottenham Hotspur first team during the 1971/72 season as part of his research for ‘The Glory Game’. Veteran striker Alan Gilzean gave the kind of response that played to every fan’s sense of wonder: “It’s not a job or a career…I get paid to enjoy myself!”. However, Gilzean was in the minority in terms of positivity. Welsh international Mike England was far more blunt stating “I play it for a living as opposed to doing it for sheer enjoyment.” Club captain Alan Mullery went even further in taking the gloss off the world of football: “I go out at the same time every day…I’m given orders…It’s a job.”

Nearly forty years later another Tottenham player was following in the steps of the stars of ‘The Glory Game’. Unfortunately for the Spurs’ faithful Benoit Assou-Ekotto was not leading them to victory in a UEFA Cup final against Wolverhampton Wanderers but, like England and Mullery before him, he admitted that he saw football purely as his job rather than the source of all joy in the world. In a frank interview with The Guardian the left-back made it clear that the beautiful game was merely his way of earning a living and that, were someone to offer him more money to play football elsewhere, he would happily move on for that bigger pay check.

 

As soon as the interview was published quotes appeared on all the football click-bait pages castigating Assou-Ekotto as a mercenary who embodied everything that was wrong with modern football. The tabloid press took the opportunity not just to criticise Assou-Ekotto but to also rail against other footballers who had put financial gain ahead of an assumed club loyalty such as Ashley Cole who had famously stated in his 2006 autobiography ‘My Defence’ that he had nearly crashed his car when he heard he was only being offered £55,000 a week from Arsenal. Maybe the press had an issue with North London based left-backs. What was clear though was that Assou-Ekotto’s honesty had gone down like the proverbial mug of cold sick with the game’s pundits.

 

There are lots of differences between professional football and other jobs with wages being one of the easiest to highlight. Take the actual figures out of the equation for a moment though. Let’s say, hypothetically, you were offered ostensibly the same job you do now with a different company or school or local authority but with double the wages. Can you honestly say that you wouldn’t take it? If we take this hypothetical situation and say it was your friend or colleague or sibling on the receiving end of this attractive offer, ok, you might be temporarily jealous, but can you honestly say you wouldn’t advise them to accept it? Or congratulate them were they to do so? Now let’s add in the condition that this job might not be one that our lucky recipient would be in until they were 70 but one that would only serve them into their mid-30s. Suddenly Benoit Assou-Ekotto’s statements don’t seem quite so mercenary do they?

 

If you’re starting to come round to the former Spurs’ man’s point of view then let me help you further. Despite, theoretically, coming to Tottenham for the money Assou-Ekotto didn’t pursue the standard London-based footballer’s approach to life in the capital by settling as far into Essex or Hertfordshire as was possible while still being able to make it into training on time. The left-back made good use of his Oyster card and sought opportunities to engage with the local community in Tottenham even going as far as to walk to home games with the club’s fans. Following the protests, and subsequent nationwide riots, after the shooting of Mark Duggan in 2011, Assou-Ekotto spoke to the BBC suggesting that he and his colleagues could do more to help bridge the wealth divide that he saw as pivotal to the unrest. He followed this up with a significant donation to the Evening Standard’s Dispossessed Fund which aims to address as wide-ranging issues as gang violence, social housing quality and food poverty in London.

 

There’s a lot to be said for one-club men and the likes of Matt Le Tissier and Paul Scholes are respected and admired by fans of all clubs for their unwavering loyalty. But let’s be blunt – their rarity is what makes them special. Despite all the badge kissing and gushing statements in matchday programmes the majority of footballers will play for a host of clubs throughout their careers. Benoit Assou-Ekotto played for five: Lens, Spurs, Queen’s Park Rangers, Saint-Etienne and Metz making 369 appearances in total. When he made the move across the Channel from Lens to Tottenham the French club’s president, Gervais Martel, criticised Assou-Ekotto for not caring about the shirt. The forthright left-back agreed but responded: “Is there one player in the world who signs for a club and says, ‘Oh, I love your shirt. Your shirt is red. I love it’? He doesn’t care. The first thing you speak about is money.” One thing that’s for sure is that Assou-Ekotto put that money where his mouth was.