By accident I came in contact with Melisa Schaufeli, she is the wife of former professional soccerplayer Andy van der Meijde. Andy has played for some big clubs like Ajax, Everton (England) and Internazionale (Italy) and he and Melisa are big celeb's in Holland. Melisa was searching for someone who could help her with creating a webshop for her hairdresser's products. So I helped her out and builded a opensource webshop.

Source, Andy & Melisa

While I visited them a couple of times at their home I also talked with Andy, he is a great guy whom has been trough a lot in the past but is a really helpfull and social guy with a great sense of humor. I must admit that I didn't was aware of his history very much, but while I also got to get to do some things for his social media I learned he had his own book , a biography. I read the book some time ago , the title is "Geen genade"which means "No Mercy" .

While I was reading his book I was kind a shocked of all the things he went trough. At young age he was already scouted for Ajax, and comming from a impecunious broken family it was a great opportinunty for him. He developed as a great soccer player and got wealthy himself, on his own strength btw... Things got heavy when he transfered to Italy and England.. He got a hold on loads of money and couldn't resist the possebilities that brought. And with those I mean the attention of women, shabby guy's whith 'awesome' deals, drugs and stuff... if you are susceptible to it, it is hard to resist I think....

The fame and fortune can do crazy things with a person I guess. In case of Andy he throwed away his fortune by drinking, woman and doing drugs... Not the kind of things you would expect from a sportsman, but temptations are big.... It attracks the wrong friends with the wrong intentions. At the end his pro-carreer was over, clubs didn't want him anymore because he was bad news.

When you look at the soccer-industry, it's almost no sportive oriented environment anymore. It's all about the money and I think, sorry for my choice of words, it is almost slavery.

And like any celebrity Andy still get's a lot of "business opportunities" from people sended to him, and at the end it is only for the bennefit of the one initiating the request. Andy now had settled down and has a great family and wife. They work hard... Andy has his own YouTube channel where he interviews other soccer- players with the title "In the car with Andy".

Glenn Helder

Source

A similar story like Andy's , is the story of Glenn Helder. Glenn was sold/transferred to Arsenal, when he got in England and did not play a lot in the premier leaque (after two seasons) he got lost into the world of gambling and he became a gamble-addict. He has lost his whole fortune in gambling and even did jailtime because he got violent towards his girlfriend.

Just to be clear, with this post I don't mean that these things are only happening in the world of Soccer (n'or that Andy and Glenn are the only ones, there are more then enough examples), I do see some similarities in origin (a bad or poorer youth, kids from the street) when it comes to not being able to manage the enormous fame and money. And for that, all the people that immediatly want something of the guy's.. I think that is a important factor of the problems they are getting themselves into...

What do you think causes this kind of behaviour, more important how can it be avoided?

Have a great sunny day

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