Former Premier League winger helping Leeds United stars plan amid coronavirus uncertainty

Ryan France knows all-too well how short a career in the professional game can be.

He was released as a teenager by Sheffield Wednesday and concentrated on his studies while playing non-league football for Alfreton Town, during Chris Wilder’s tenure.

A chance to return to the professional game cropped up when Leeds legend Gary McAllister offered him a two-year deal at Coventry City, but France was determined to finish his Maths with Sports Science degree at Nottingham Trent University and turned it down.

At 22, he was back in full-time football, snapped up by Hull City in 2003 and the Tigers’ subsequent back-to-back promotions made it four in a row for France, who had gone up the previous two seasons with Alfreton.

In 2008, Hull earned a spot in the Premier League and France found himself amongst the elite, but the 2010/11 season was his last, a knee injury at Sheffield United cruelly curtailing his career before the age of 31.

“When I came out of football, I was with quite a lot of people in thinking everything will be rosy, someone will offer me a job,” he said.

“I had a maths degree, I’m an okay kind of guy, someone will give me an opportunity. That never came. More fool me for thinking that. I’ve ‘grown up’ quite a lot since I left football.”

France, who tried his hand at running a sports massage therapy business and then sales, is now a financial planner and looks after a number of current Leeds United players.

He’s trying to use the experiences he had as a player to help footballers at all levels to have more ‘options’ than he had, when their playing days end.

“I played in every division, been promoted, relegated, had a long-term injury, seen the highs and the lows and retired due to an injury that got the better of me,” he said.

“I’d seen quite a lot in the game and thought why not combine it with what I know now and what I wish I’d have done if I was advising myself back then, from a financial perspective.

“There are a lot of very, very good people in the game who want to do well for themselves and their families.

“I’ve got clients at all levels in football – I don’t want to just focus on the top end, it wouldn’t be a fantastic business if I just focused on people at the bottom – and when I sit down with a client, the majority need help.

“They’re really good at football, sometimes they’re not really good at financial planning for the future.

“They’ve got to be committed so when they get to retirement they’ve got some options.

“I didn’t have many options because I had not financially planned as well as I probably could have.”

France says he has found his clients’ finances in good shape, but therein lies a problem.

“I was never paid a fortune but I was paid well, and when I look back at the sums of money I earned as an individual and for my family, if I could have earned that for the rest of my life I would have been very, very comfortable,” he said.

“But, as you know, footballers don’t have that luxury; it’s a short-term career path.

“They’ve got income coming in at okay levels, they can put food in their mouth, but my concern is what happens when that tap is switched off?

“It’s not something that depletes over time, it falls off the edge of a cliff.

“My job is to prepare these guys that this is going to happen and see if we can reduce that effect to whatever level.

“It happened for me sooner than I expected. I didn’t get into the game until late and exited the game early.”

The financial services industry is more heavily regulated these days than when France was a top-flight footballer and he can recall colleagues who were given bad advice and off-plan property ‘opportunities’ that seemed too good to be true, but financial horror stories involving players still crop up on an all-too frequent basis.

So the coronavirus pandemic and the lockdown that has caused the cessation of all football and brought the financial health of clubs and their ability to pay player wages sharply into focus, will have alarmed many who make their living in the game.

France admits he would have been frustrated, in both the sporting and financial sense, had an already-short career been reduced further by a situation like this.

“If I was playing now, and I wish I was, and this had happened, I would have been frustrated,” he said.

“My career span is, say to 35. So if this takes up six months of my career potential to achieve what I want to achieve, I had eight years but I would only have seven and a half.

“It’s taking earning potential off the table. Some of the players will be thinking that.

“If your career goes from 10 years to nine and a half, you’ll be wanting to get back into it as soon as possible.

“It is [alarming] but it’s affecting us all. Footballers, they’re easy targets, but we’re all in this together in my opinion. Everyone is having to take a bit of a hit.

“The higher the level you go yes the more income you get, but the higher your standard of living, rightly or wrongly.

“If that’s affected you have to cut your cloth and it’s the same at a lower level. People become accustomed to their standard of living and wages.

“Footballers got into the game from an early age and I can guarantee it wasn’t for money, that will have been a byproduct. They’ll be missing playing football.

“With their team-mates and staff day in and day out, they live in each other’s pockets and now they’re at home with their families. You can imagine someone going from one extreme to the other, it’s a big change. They’re affected, financially and not doing what they’ve only known for a long time.”

So France’s approach was to offer his clients reassurance.

“I approached this on the front foot,” he said.

“My recommendations are always medium to long term anyway.

“I try and educate my clients that this is part and parcel of the long-term strategy – as long as nothing has changed since we first sat down, to the five or 10-year plan, although it’s alarming to see every day, I’m talking to them, making sure they understand what’s happening and emphasising that, if the plan hasn’t changed, the long-term plan needs to be adhered to.

“Now is not the time to panic, it’s a time to be reassured that it’s still a long-term investment strategy.”

The ex-Premier League winger hopes he can work with more players to help steer them through this turbulence to long-term financial stability and hopes his clients are back doing what they do best sooner rather than later, for the sake of everyone in the game.

“I wasn’t helped out enormously when I was playing and that’s what I’m trying to do now.

“I don’t think I’m helping as many as I could, I want to get out there and help as many as I can, whether it’s a bit of guidance or putting a strategy in place.

“I think it would be so unfair if the season to some extent wasn’t concluded. It affects so many, not just players, staff, non-playing staff, everybody at a club.”