Professional football goalkeepers are constantly reminded every time they take a goal kick as to how bad they are, usually courtesy of an expletive.
One would expect them to develop a thick skin and to put such chants out of their minds, but it appears that one former International goalkeeper has taken it to heart.
Former Ghana International goalkeeper Sammy Adjei has caused quite a stir at home as it has become public knowledge that in retirement he manages a public toilet at Labadi, a suburb of Accra in the Greater Accra Region.
Yet this is not a riches to rags story as many have interpreted it to be. The former Black Stars ‘keeper apparently decided to “take advantage of the non-availability of places of convenience in suburbs of the nation’s capital to invest in the sector one of which is at Labadi.”
By all accounts it is a very successful and thriving business. Adjei saw an opportunity and has seized it. Yet many in Ghana are finding it hard to come to terms with that a former national player could be involved in such a business.
Adjei is not the first former international to take advantage of something all of us do on a daily basis. Francis Lee who won the old Football League with Manchester City and Derby County and represented England 27 times became a millionaire when he retired from football thanks to a toilet paper business he started while still playing.
The company which was called F.H Lee started off in the wastepaper and haulage business before moving into tissues and eventually making toilet rolls, kitchen rolls, handkerchiefs, etcetera. The company ended up supplying most of the major retailers in the UK. It was sold in 2000.
Lee told the Bolton News in 2015 that “It was part of the condition set by my father that if I wanted to try and become a footballer I had to plan for when the game had finished.”
Sage advice, as history has shown if players do not have a plan when their careers finish the money they have earned soon disappears.
While some players flush their earnings down the toilet, Lee and Adjei have decided to invest in the lavatory game.
