Footballers and Autobiographies

William Gallas is now almost on the verge of leaving Arsenal F.C. This day had to come, with the former Arsenal captain trying to assert his public image as such and doing so at the detriment of his own team.

William Gallas' latest outburst came at the launch of his autobiography in France. What is interesting is the reason for Arsene Wenger's sudden decision to sack him as the captain.

It's quite obvious that Gallas' comments about his team mates and a certain 25-year-old must not have helped things, but it is also interesting to note that William Gallas had fallen out with Samir Nasri during France's embarrassing outing at the European Championships in the summer.

"Player S", as the man himself has written in his autobiography, apparently disrespected him and Thierry Henry during the tournament. The manner in which Gallas had written what he had would have made a lot of people feel odd.

More than anything else, he seemed to want to assert himself on the others, rather than "using the arm around the shoulder" tactic.

That is perhaps why Arsene Wenger chose him as a captain in the first place. Patrick Vieira was also a no-nonsense person, but Thierry Henry after him was a passive captain.

Vieira, though, wasn't an irresponsible tool at handling the press. As for Henry, he didn't seem to inspire his players, and seemed to be a quiet leader of the team. 

What William Gallas did wrong was that he tried to impose himself on the team when a majority of them were youngsters. It will never go down well with certain players when you say "it's my way or the highway."

Young footballers who play for a country or a club are bound to be arrogant on some level. Gallas, being old school and an eccentric character, tried to inspire the Gunners with words which ended up sealing his fate at the club.

Arsene Wenger had clearly had enough of Gallas' outbursts. If anything, this was his chance to sack Gallas as captain of Arsenal Football Club.

I wonder why Gallas wrote an autobiography so soon in the first place. He has not achieved anything compared to the likes of his French compatriots of his generation. Yet he decided to bring out an autobiography which contained some very avoidable excerpts.

In this case at least, Gallas is not all that bad. How a 20-year-old can write an autobiography is beyond me—and yet, that's exactly what Wayne Rooney did a few of years ago.

At the time, he had won nothing with Manchester United—with England having been dumped out of the World Cup rather unceremoniously by Portugal. David Beckham, (C)Ashley Cole, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, and Rio Ferdinand were also some other notable players to have written one as well.

My only question is, why so soon?

The money will definitely be good, but don't they earn a considerable amount of money from playing the sport and endorsing products? Why on earth have these footballers decided to write things about their lives before their careers have even ended?

Everyone has a story to tell. But in my opinion, that story should be a complete one—not one with half your career highlights in it. 

I understand the fact that footballers have to earn as much as they can in a span of 10-15 years. That doesn't mean that they take such foolish steps and write autobiographies when they might not have even reached their prime.

They may be talented, but so are so many other footballers in the world and I don't see them writing "their life stories" until after they retire.

As far as William Gallas is concerned, he put his foot in his mouth. A captain should lead by his performances and a strong personality. Unfortunately, Arsenal fans only saw what Gallas was capable of during his career at Arsenal sporadically. They certainly saw his utter incompetence when it came to leading a bunch of players as well.

We might well be watching a new dawn for Arsenal—one without William Gallas as a captain, and one with Arsene Wenger realising his mistakes. 

Could that mean that Arsenal will achieve a string of good results, with Wenger strengthening the squad in January?

You will never be able to predict anything about the results with this Arsenal team—with or without William Gallas.

And you certainly will never be able to predict what is on Arsene Wenger's mind as far as transfers are concerned either.