It is not a secret that football players like gambling and poker in particular. Athletes, especially the ones who play in England, Spain, Germany and Italy get huge money they have to spend somewhere. They have luxury cars, huge villas, have dinners in expensive restaurants and always want the best in everything. With such a life the interest becomes lost as the football player has everything he wants and it becomes more and more difficult to surprise himself. That’s why many athletes start to play poker as this game has some emotional components of football (gambling, dynamics, the joy of winning and losing) and allows winning big amounts of money and feel the adrenaline rush.

Today we can say with the confidence that many famous football players not just have poker as a hobby but spend too much of their free time playing this game. We will tell of the most vivid examples of these athletes in this article.

By the way, you can also play poker for free with the help of special sign up offers. More info is available on www.pokerglobal.info web site.

Famous football players who play poker

Almost all old-schooled hooligans of England, like Paul Gascoigne and Tony Adams were enjoying card games and they were as deep as they lost so much they couldn’t afford drinking. There are gamblers in football now as well. The English national team and Manchester United forward Michael Owen has a nickname “Lucky”. He is fond of gambling as much as he is incompetent to that.

Coming back after World Cup 2002, Owen lost 30 thousand pounds to Kieron Dyer, his teammate from national team. Lucky Dyer even forgot he is not the winner of the World Cup and was jumping all over the plane with the cheque in his hands.

As we know, football players earn as much they just won’t feel that 30-thousand dollar cheque. Nevertheless, the coaches don’t approve that. As Tommy Doherty, ex-coach of MU claims, should one of the players lose a big amount of money, this negatively affects the team spirit.

Coaches, though, do play cards themselves. For instance, Bert van Marwijk who likes presenting watches to everyone around, became famous for putting Netherlands national team to the finals, was the 1975 Klaverjassen (popular gambling game) champion in Netherlands.

“West Ham” manager Alan Pardew told this several years ago: “I believe, online poker problem becomes bigger with every day. It becomes very popular among the players, and almost nobody limits their losses. Coaches can’t control all the spending of the football players, this is especially relevant for online casinos”.

The night spent in front of the computer won’t benefit a young player in the morning practice. And he still looks up to his idols.

Poker companies actively us the images of football stars in their ads, Gianluigi Buffon and Francesco Totti in Italy  told about their passion to poker, Andrei Arshavin was filmed in the poker site ad. The members of Russian national team Alexandr Buharov and Vasiliy Berezutskiy told their fans of the success in online poker. Forward who was bought by “Zenit” for big money earned not only playing football. He had recently won 50 thousand dollars in one of online poker tournaments.

The list of lucky winners goes on and on. Teddy Sheringham, ex-MU forward, and Tony Cascarino, ex-star of Irish national team professionally play poker and win at the level of UK Poker Tour and World Series of Poker.

Not all the players are winners, of course. The most vivid situations are connected with Alan Pardew’s “West Ham” (that upsets him a lot). For instance, the rising star halfback Matthew Etherington lost in different games somewhere about 1.5 million of pounds losing his starting position at the football field. He went through therapy and now seem like lost his gambling habits.
The goalkeeper Roy Carroll showed good results, he was accepted to “Manchester United”, and his career went down so Roy had to go through gambling (and alcohol) addiction therapy. There are rumors that when he played in “West Ham” he lost thirty thousand dollars in the bus to one of his teammates and the club sent him to the rehab after that. The goalie who now plays for “Odense” of Denmark claims it wasn’t that critical. “It’s funny for me to hear these rumors about thirty thousands, – comments Carroll, – this is big money for me. Even five thousands is too much to lose. I play poker, but I don’t spend 24/7 doing it. I don’t bet on horse racing, I occasionally buy lottery tickets but everyone around keeps talking I have an addiction”.

Famous British coach Harry Redknapp might look like a communist but he is close to capitalistic hobbies. He still admits he enjoys playing cards. Redknapp prefers poker.

Most of the players know when to stop and don’t fall down. Sometimes they even show profit. For example, ex-MU forward Teddy Sheringham who now became a poker pro won tens of thousands pounds in his career. CSKA and Barcelona defenders Vasiliy Berezutskiy and Gerard Piquet also were successful in prestigious international live tournaments.

Some English football players accused National team coach Kevin Keegan in that he is only able to get along with his card opponents. Keegan himself denied these accusations: “Nothing bonds the coach and the players more than playing bridge together. Many players played cards in my team and then showed excellent football on the field. I don’t see anything criminal in my card hobby”.

The Italian star footballer Francesco Totti believes one can play cards but not for money: “I always play with the guys in planes after the matches. What’s wrong about this? It helps to spare the time and exercises the brain. I don’t like putting the money at stake”.

Instead of conclusion

The people start to judge different players as soon as they hear they’ve been noticed in poker clubs or casinos trying to prove this is wrong. However, in this situation the football player is no different to other people who don’t have that big income. This only means the player is able to afford losing huge amount of money and not go broke, unlike his fans. If it doesn’t contradict with the rules of the football clubs or associations, there is nothing bad in football player spending several hours of his spare time at the poker table.