Former player of the French team, notably with AS Monaco and Olympique de Marseille, Gaël Givet explained on Thursday that he had lost his passion for current Football. In particular because of a new generation of footballers more interested in the sidelines than the field.
More his football… Legend of AS Monaco (232 matches) and manager of the Champions League finalist team in 2004, Gaël Givet confided this Thursday that he was increasingly losing interest in football. Alongside the opening of a padel center, his new passion, the former central defender regretted the evolution of football in recent years.
“What bothers me is that current football no longer resembles the one I knew. It is deteriorating at all levels,” complained the former French player in an interview with the newspaper Nice-Morning.
First among amateurs, where he saw parents disrupting matches and educators in distress because they were too obsessed with the result. In the professional world, then, where the image of his sport seems tarnished to him. Including in the stands where fights are increasing and where, according to him, respect has disappeared.
Givet smashes the new generation “who no longer thinks about the game”
But the big problem in football, according to the man who wore the French team jersey twelve times between 2004 and 2006, lies in the footballers themselves. For Gaël Givet, the new generation of players thinks too much about extra-sporting things and is not focused enough on the pitch.
“I have the impression that we first think about having a beautiful sweetheart and putting ourselves in a photo on the networks with our beautiful car,” lamented the former defender who also spent time with OM and Blackburn with of the regional daily. “When I was 14-15, with my friends at training, we quickly put on our crampons to have fun, play ball tennis, pass. We only thought about touching the ball.”
Before specifying: “Today, the young people are in the locker room, they watch their Insta and videos. They no longer think about the game.”
“Football is making a fool of itself”
Without forgetting to remember that he does not want to put all young players in the same boat, some have values that he likes, Gaël Givet would like to find more family clubs in Ligue 1. Problem, it will not get better until They will be the property of “foreign” financiers who have nothing to do with the club and its coat of arms.
The terrible observation of the former center, now aged 43, even pushes him to be “almost” ashamed of current football which, according to him, “is making a fool of itself”. A bit nostalgic with this Ligue 1 and this sport that he loved, Gaël Givet wants to be clear: football was better before.
