Hitting out at the WAG culture in football these days Roy Keane has blasted footballers for being dictated to by their wives. He says:
These so-called big stars are people we are supposed to be looking up to. Well they are weak and soft. If they don’t want to come because their wife wants to go shopping in London it’s a sad state of affairs.
A couple of years ago I nearly went to Juventus. People spoke to me about Turin and told me Milan would be a nicer place to go.I told them I wasn’t going for the shops, I am going because it is Juventus.
Of course he’s right in a way. How much of Beckham’s move to the US was down to what Victoria wanted? Surely he couldn’t have been so willing to give up top flight football? Ashley Cole’s dispute with Arsenal wasn’t helped by his missus sticking her nose into things. The list goes on.
But it’s not new. In the mid-90s Arsenal signed Swedish midfielder Stefan Schwarz but he left after just one year because his wife couldn’t settle in England. He moved to Fiorentina and ironically ended up at Sunderland some years later.
It’s rumoured that after seeing Sunderland his wife whispered ‘Should have stayed in London’ and went into a coma for the duration of his time there.
