A member of Tottenham‘s Europa League-winning squad from just a matter on months ago has called time on his footballing journey for a shock new career.
The star, who was 26 when he called it quits but is now 27, was with Spurs from his youth teams days before signing his first professional deal, and was with the team until the end of last season.
During that time, he had two loan spells – both with Swedish side Degerfors, but never really looked like making any impact of sorts on the first team and found himself way down the pecking order regularly.
So he started dipping his toes into other areas of live to try potential careers, including acting classes, broadcasting, and photography.
According to The Athletic, he expected to continue his footballing career when he was released by Tottenham at the end of last season, but called it a day on his own terms in the summer.
The player in question is goalkeeper Alfie Whiteman. He also featured for England at Under-17 and U19 levels, but has now hung up his boots for the lens.
A member of Tottenham’s Europa League-winning squad in the summer has retired from playing at the age of 26
The now-former goalkeeper was with Spurs from his youth days but failed to make a dent in the first team
Alfie Whiteman, now 27, has taken up photography despite the expectation that he would continue his career in the summer
‘I signed for Spurs at 10 years old,’ he told The Athletic as he announced the news publicly. ‘Then I left school at 16 and went straight into this full-time life of football.
‘When I was around 17 or 18, living in digs, I just had this feeling inside of, “Is this it?” Getting on the mini bus, going to training, doing the Sports Science BTEC and going home to play video games. I realised, “Oh, I’m not happy here” from quite a young age.
‘The stereotype of a footballer is generally quite true. It’s the golf, washbag culture. I was that young footballer. I wanted the Gucci washbag and I drove the Mercedes. You all just become a reflection of each other. You’re a product of your environment. It’s the way football is in this country; it’s so shut off from anything else. You go to training and then you go home, that’s it.
He added: ‘Football is a short career regardless, even if you do really well, and I knew that I didn’t want to stay in it. It was about trying to gain experience and be proactive in learning about these things I was also interested in, but mainly because I was enjoying it, and was surrounded by the kinds of people that were doing what I enjoyed as a job. They were making things. It was really inspiring.’
He made one appearance for Tottenham at senior level, which came under Jose Mourinho in the Europa League in 2020. He tried to leave in 2024, but Spurs needed club-trained players for their Europa League campaign, and he ended up being part of the winning squad.
He went onto explain that he has two trials in the summer – one at a League One club and one at a Championship club – but eventually decided he saw ‘happiness’ in his other ventures.
Whiteman has since worked with the likes of Nike and rapper Central Cee, also performing his craft in the likes of Norway and Ukraine. He also said he has not watched any football since retiring from playing.
