“Stick to football.”
It’s a common retort by pundits and fans whenever a player who does anything remotely interesting off the pitch has a single bad game on it.
When Marcus Rashford tried to end child hunger in the UK, he made headlines and improved thousands of children’s lives, but was told to focus on football by politicians and pundits alike.
But footballers’ lives are more than just ninety minutes on a Saturday afternoon. Even with midweek games and training, football itself takes up a relatively small amount of the day. Training sessions usually last two hours at the most, and footballers often have the afternoon off to let their bodies recover. Even if a footballer has the longevity of Cristiano Ronaldo, their career is only a fraction of their lifespan. Not to mention the importance of their mental health—they need time to unwind and decompress mentally too so that they’re in all-round top shape for the next match; not spend all week thinking about the mistakes they made in the previous match.
Given all this, is it realistic to expect footballers to spend every moment of the day sticking to football?