Everyone needs to retire from a job eventually, and this is no different in football. Turkish players end their careers somewhere in the middle ages of their lives. Being 40 years old as a footballer is considered to be a senior player. What do retired footballers do in their lives? How do they earn money?
Becoming a trainer
That is a typical career path for outstanding players who don’t want to exit the pitch. After years of playing, they have enough experience to lead others to victory. Şenol Güneş, the trainer of the Men’s National Team, is a former football player. The same with the managers of Galatasaray and Trabzonspor, Fatih Terim and Abdullah Avcı. Becoming a trainer is a natural way for the top stars of football because these are the people who love this sport.
Having some fun
When you are a candidate for the football team, you need to have a good reputation and perfect health. There is no place for drinking, smoking, wild parties, gambling, and other risky or controversial behaviour. Then, you are a player, so you need to obey the rules, and they are forbidding you quite a lot, but this is the price for being famous, and let us be sincere, earning quite a lot of money. Turkish footballers gross salary is 54.162 ₺ (26 ₺ an hour)plus an average bonus of 1.365 ₺. After you retire, the rules don’t limit you anymore. You can go and do whatever you want, and that is, in fact, highly recommended. People focused on a career for so long need to disconnect for a while and let themselves do everything they were willing to try but couldn’t because of the regulations. Now, no one will stop them from jumping with parachute, partying or playing online slots.
Focusing on family
Players have families even during active career, but there is almost no time to spend with them during the season. Football is one of the most popular sports in Turkey. They are training, playing far from town, or even abroad for long weeks. If the player has children, they see him more often on TV than face-to-face in some periods. That is why so many retired footballers decide to dedicate their new free time to their family. Sometimes they start local teams for younglings to be still connected to the sport.
Thinking about money
In Turkey, football players are rich, so after retirement, they have quite a wealth if they weren’t wild spenders. Some footballers are responsible from the very beginning, and they invest their money correctly for their whole career, while others spend it quickly to buy luxury goods. There are many ways to handle massive amounts of money. They can invest part somewhere in the market, and some can be given to the charity, the rest put on the account and use for everyday spendings. It is also good to separate some for entertainment and luxury needs. It can be enough to buy a new, fancy car or to go to the casino/casinot, spend the night of the lifetime, play slots, poker, roulette, win more or lose it all. After retirement, there won’t be consequences for the former player. Only journalists may write something about it in some gossip magazine.
Dreamhouse
It is better to have an apartment in the city where the club is located during an active career. Training and matches are so often that it is unconventional to have a home too far. Galatasaray players will not live in Trabzon since their club is in Stambul. However, after retirement, footballers can finally buy or build a home where they always wanted to live. It doesn’t need to be necessarily in Turkey. Generally, people like to save money for the house they will live in peace after retirement. The same is with footballers, but to be honest, they are in a better situation because of the amount of money they have earned throughout their whole career.
Being a sponsor
Sometimes the new career of the trainer is not something that football players want. They try new things, but they want to have some impact on football. That is why many retired football players become sponsors for young, talented people, who want to follow their dreams of being professional footballer, or even sponsor whole teams, for example, the ones they grew up in. There are always unique feelings to the first club in the career, and sometimes that is where footballers want to invest and mentor.
Conclusion
After retirement, the whole new world is open for former football players. They can stick with the sport, train or sponsor it, or disconnect and start a different life. It can be a peaceful one with the family in a dreamhouse somewhere or the wild, funny one since the past rules banned many lavish entertainments such as parties, casinos, or risky sports.