The sport is lagging behind the rest of society when it comes to helping fathers care for their new-born babies and partners
When Erling Haaland scored against Leicester last year to end a four-game goal drought, Pep Guardiola sought to explain the Norwegian's erratic form by announcing some huge news about the striker’s personal life.
"He's tired, he's played a lot of minutes. He's become a father for the first time in the last few days," the Manchester City boss said. "A lot of emotions and an exciting few days for him."
Anyone who has had children and can recall the manic few days after a birth would have immediately felt sympathy for Haaland. So on one level, Guardiola's revelation put all discussions about the striker's form into perspective. But it also begged another question: whether Haaland should have been playing at all so soon after such a significant life event.
Every father in the United Kingdom is entitled, by law, to at least two weeks of paternity leave. But in football almost no one takes it. Indeed, those who try to have any meaningful time off to care for their brand new arrival and their partner are vilified…
Getty'Massive deal for player and partner'
Haaland is by no means alone in having to continue to play elite football so soon after a birth. His team-mate Phil Foden left England's Euro 2024 camp on June 26 to attend the birth of his third child. England at first announced he was leaving due to "a pressing family matter". He was back with the squad by June 27, resuming training the very next day and then starting the last-16 game against Slovakia on June 30.
Jack Grealish's daughter was born on September 27 last year. He was thrust straight into the starting line-up the very next day for the early kick-off at Newcastle. Incidentally, Grealish played well, setting up Josko Gvardiol's strike in the 1-1 draw, which is a miracle considering the life-changing event that had occurred the previous day both for Grealish and his girlfriend Sasha Attwood, who he has been with since he was 16.
"I can't think of a bigger experience in life for men than becoming a father, especially for the first time," Jeremy Davies of the Fatherhood Institute tells GOAL. "It's a massive deal just for them but it's not just about them, it's about their partner who has just gone through this amazing, scary and painful and potentially very risky experience of being pregnant and giving birth. So it seems totally unreasonable to me to expect men to go through that and remain focused on their work in an unblinkered way when they are going through this massive emotional and physical change.
"If you're a hands-on father there is a physical transformation in you which derives from the contact with the baby. Even if you do a small amount of that your hormones are racing, your testosterone dips, oxytocin increases. That stuff transforms us for the long term. There's a lot of physical transformation and that's before you get on to the emotional stuff. There are many social reasons why you'd want to be a hands-on dad, it's good for the mother, it helps her have a better time of it, helps her recover from the birth which can take quite a while. The wife or partner's career, all of that stuff is affected by his capacity to take a share in the care-giving. So what are we saying? That football is so important that he doesn't get to experience that transformation, the baby doesn't get to have a chance to have a really close relationship with him because he's too busy on the football pitch? It doesn't make sense."
The Professional Footballers Association has said that "the decision to take paternity leave will vary from player to player depending on their unique personal circumstances. However, it is important for players to know that they have a statutory right to take a period of paid paternity leave if they wish to do so."
AdvertisementGetty A 'crazy decision' and a helicopter
The reality is very different, of players rushing from hospitals to stadiums, juggling the emotions of bringing a new life into the world with trying to help their team. Last year Sammie Szmodics' wife gave birth at 11.15am after going into labour at 2am. But by 3pm he was on the pitch at Ewood Park playing for Blackburn against Norwich. "I'd had about three hours kip but luckily the baby arrived happy and healthy. After it had calmed down, your emotions are through the roof," the now-Ipswich Town forward said afterwards.
"On the way from the hospital to the game, I remember ringing my agent and him laughing and looking back, it was a crazy decision. The first couple of minutes of the match I was sprinting and realised that I was playing on adrenaline because I was absolutely exhausted."
Of course he was. He did at least have a shorter journey to make to the game than Leeds United winger Daniel James, who in 2021 was flown via helicopter from a Manchester hospital to Craven Cottage to play for Leeds at Fulham in the Carabao Cup hours after his wife had given birth to their son. Davies can understand why players would not want to take paternity leave at a key moment of the season or during a major tournament but believes they must be allowed, and encouraged, to take it later.
"I can see from an individual footballer's point of view the timing of the baby's arrival would be absolutely terrible. If there's an important match, take the paternity leave after the match," he says. "You have the right to take the leave until 56 days after the birth. Between them, the mother, father and club should work it out."
Getty Images SportFoster's anger, Cole's torment
The sad fact is that players simply being able to attend the birth is a victory nowadays, given previous precedents. Queens Park Rangers boss Trevor Francis infamously fined Martin Allen two weeks wages in 1989 for missing a game to go to hospital to attend a birth. In 2011 Ben Foster missed the birth of his second child while he tried to race back from England training. Fabio Capello had only reluctantly given him permission to miss the session and ordered him to return the next day to play in a friendly. He was told he would play the second half but was never brought on. The saga led to Foster quitting England for a two-year period, eventually returning to the squad in 2014 when Roy Hodgson was in charge. He later said: "Playing for England is the proudest moment ever. But the manager (Capello) ruined it completely for me."
Andy Cole, meanwhile, ended up siding with Sir Alex Ferguson over his own partner when deciding whether or not to play for Manchester United against Southampton in 1995 just as she was going into labour. The striker had endured an uneasy start to life with United and after speaking to Ferguson he decided to play the game. He was informed of the successful delivery of his son in the 15th minute and went on to score.
Cole said in the documentary '99': "We were trying to win the Premier League. I remember the manager calling and saying to me: ‘What are you thinking?’ [I was] 25 years of age, I had only been at United for four months, how do I turn round and say 'no'? Obviously, she [his partner Shirley Dewar] saw it from her point of view. She said 'I can’t believe you left me to go and play the game'. I’m trying to manage it to the best of my capabilities, as a young man who had had his first child. [I said] 'But, we were trying to win the league as well, I didn’t want to leave you'. The torment I was going through."
GettyKeane: 'He didn't have the baby!'
Cole's team-mate Phil Neville did manage to attend the birth of his two children but his wife, Julie, revealed years later that he left her bleeding in the delivery suite just after the arrival in order to go to training. She told the : "I literally remember them (the hospital staff) going, 'Where’s Philip? somebody ring him now, he needs to come now'. He says that’s the only time, probably, football, maybe, shouldn’t have come first."
That those two incidents took place under Ferguson should not be the biggest surprise. The legendary ex-United boss admitted in the 2021 documentary 'Never Give in' that his wife Cathy had almost exclusively brought up their three sons as he was so focused on his career. Ferguson’s captain Roy Keane showed a similar attitude towards parental leave when he was Ireland’s assistant coach in 2015 and was asked whether Robbie Keane would be playing in a European Championship qualifier against Germany so soon after his wife had given birth in the United States. "Yeah, but he didn’t have the baby, did he?" Keane said without a hint of irony. "Unless he’s breastfeeding, he should be alright."
Attitudes aren't necessarily much better outside of the British isles. Rafa Benitez was furious with Xabi Alonso when he missed a Champions League game with Liverpool at Inter in 2009 to be with his wife for the birth of their child. Alonso left Liverpool at the end of that season to join Real Madrid.