My Bad Boy XI – Part 1

With an increasing amount of footballers being in trouble with the law, I wondered if I could get a good enough team together that all have something in common, a fling with the old bill.

I’m going to aim for the funniest and most obscure reasons in which the player was arrested/cautioned to fill each position, otherwise I would end up with a world XI due to near enough every top professional footballer having once been caught speeding in their careers. So expect a revealing and shocking insight into some players you may or may not know about.

It’ll be a flat 4-4-2 – I can’t be giving these players too much responsibility within a more complicated formation, can I? (A low blow, I know.)

GK – In goal, I would have current Manchester United number one, David De Gea. A short while after his British record transfer fee for a goalkeeper of £17.8 million from Atletico Madrid in 2011, the llama-looking man was caught stealing from a shop. Was it an expensive bit of technological kit that was essential to him? Or something he needed for his new home that was vital?

Nope, it was a Krispy Kreme doughnut, and a plain glazed one at that! The keeper earns a reported £70,000-per-week and ‘cheaped out’ on buying a £1.19 doughnut… what a doughnut.

RB – A bit of a recent one as a I have only seen the story today, but Tottenham right-back Kyle Walker has been pictured consuming laughing gas whilst away on International duty with England. I know it mustn’t be that entertaining representing your country, but at least crack a natural smile, Kyle, not without the assistance of nitrous oxide, my man!

RCB – It’ll have to be Tony Adams wouldn’t it? The only captain of England to serve in three different decades I believe has had a troubled career because of certain narcotics, mainly alcohol. The funniest would be in 1990 when he plummeted his motor into a wall near his house after his exclusion from the World Cup squad.

He was made to serve a four month sentence, although ended up only serving two of them. Ahh, the English justice system in full effect when it comes to celebrities.

His alcoholism was not revealed to the public until six years after the incident.

LCB – Introducing the world’s bravest man to ever step foot on a football pitch, John Terry! The man knows no limits in life and will happily throw himself in front of a football, bottle out of taking a penalty in a shoot-out and even yell racist comments (allegedly) at a player who is the younger brother of his England centre-back partner. Brilliant. What a man, Mr Chelsea.

LB – Probably one of the most infamous match fixing scandals to ever take place in England involved Tony Kay and two other Sheffield Wednesday players, David Layne and Peter Swann. It was revealed through an internal investigation that the three players had bet against their team to lose 2-0 to Ipswich in 1962 and were all arrested on conspiracy to defraud and were all found guilty.

Kay was sentenced to four months imprisonment and a £150 fine was given. He left prison aged 28 and with a life ban from the FA, he went to Spain to play amateur football and narrowly escaped further imprisonment when involved in the sale of a counterfeit diamond.

To be continued…