Retirement at 22? It is the choice of Swiss footballer Silvan Wallner. Only two months after signing for Austrian club FC Blau-Weiß Linz, he called it quits. For a reason that goes beyond everything in his mind: his Christian faith which he considers incompatible with his profession. “I am a believing Christian and I read the Bible. I make decisions about my life myself, the player said in a press release. I want to follow Jesus Christ and the biblical day of rest has become important to me. »
Silvan Wallner no longer wants to play on Saturday, a holy day in his eyes. He is a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which has a precept of Saturday as a day of complete rest and fellowship with God. “For me, as a professional, this means that from now on I do not want to play football on Saturdays for commercial purposes. This is my personal conviction, which I have come to in recent days. »
During his short career, Silvan Wallner was crowned Swiss champion with FC Zurich in 2022, his training club. The full-back has played in all of his country's youth teams. He was still in the national team's youth squad last September, a month after participating in the third qualifying round of the Europe Conference League with Zurich. He had just arrived in Linz.
