You can always play football and study; now that the football career is not bringing you what you want I will encourage you to apply to a university and start studying something. Those are my elder brother’s words of encouragement many years ago and am glad those words came and I yielded to them.
I moved to the city of Rovaniemi (for a young African entering Europe for the first time, Rovaniemi was with no doubt the coldest city on the planet earth) Finland in September 2008 to study Information Technology but really my primary goal was to kick off my football career.
After settling into the city the next thing was for me to look for the biggest football club in the city which I found RoPS (Rovaniemi Palloseura). Finnish football runs from March – October so coming in September was a late period but I still had my share of training with the team a few times before the end of the season.
At the resumption of training in January 2009, I realized I could not combine my first year of study and football at that level due to many situations and tight training schedule so I joined a team in the 3rd division FC Muurola to keep my fitness up in the hope for the 2010 season when my education would have gotten a lot easier.
I Played 3 games with the team before I got knocked out with a serious knee injury that took me out of active football for 2years, the incident that I always refer to as “the beginning of the end of a career that I choose but never choose me”. Those were years of a nightmare but education came in strong for me still keeps me in.
I tried coming back to full fitness in 2011 but really it wasn’t working meanwhile during this period, though legs could not do what it loves to do, the brain was giving life to the legs through education. Today, I have a Bachelor and a Master Degree both in Information Technology and Software Systems and Technology respectively, am still in the football world, have met great people within the football circle and starting my own football management company soon.
I want to use my story to encourage African footballers who are living their dreams in the world of football to think about life after football and a good foundation to that is having some sort of knowledge through any form of education. Technology has brought everything close to our fingertips so everyone can have some sort of education at the comfort of their homes not having the need to sit in lectures for years (that could be boring :)).
In conclusion, a football career at the top level should be combined with education by the African football stars, this will always give leverage directly or indirectly for life after football.