Some players are criticised for having no loyalty. Well, I wanted to go back home and play for the club I supported. I don't think that's a crime.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
People talk about loyalty of players to clubs. But in the everyday world, you don't see people being loyal to their company when they're getting offered considerably better deals elsewhere.
Football spectators appreciate a bit of loyalty, and we're seeing that less and less. There are echelons of football, as in society, where some players are clearly mercenaries. I regret in a way that somehow the local identification, the local bonding between the community and its football team has been commercialised to such an extent.
They are not your players, they are loaned from the club. You just wheel them out for a game for England.
If you own a football club, you have to be really involved and committed.
It's unfortunate that you don't see the loyalty from management to players and players to management like we used to see in the old days.
Once you declare your loyalty to a team, every person who doesn't support that team, it's their job to ruin you, to tell you you're an idiot and to tell you that you made the wrong choice.
No money in this world could convince me to play for Liverpool. That's not a lack of respect for Liverpool supporters or the football club. It's respect for the Everton supporters. You just can't do that. It goes against everything that I stand for. No chance.
The situation was, the team I was on when I got injured went down to the lower leagues. In America, they don't have that relegation, so when the team went down to the lower region, every player has his value, and they went off and sold any player who had value.
Misdeeds of a few players and certain people cannot and should not bring bad name to hundreds of players who participated in the I.P.L. with full honesty. The reputation of the I.P.L. cannot be tarnished by a few greedy individuals.
I've got absolutely no intention of ever going to play at another club.