A new BBC Radio 5 Live podcast series, Jermain Defoe: Outside the Box, lifts the lid life after football and dreams of becoming a manager.
Jermain signed his first professional contract with Charlton Athletic in 1997 at the age of just 14 years old. Over the next 25 years, he scored three hundred and five goals for seven different clubs, and twenty more for England.
The Ex-England striker and former Premier League favourite knew a career in football would only take him so far and always had his eyes on the future.
Jermain finally decided to hang up his boots last year and this podcast picks up in the immediate aftermath, following him for six months as he discovers his next step.
Narrated by Tottenham Hotspur fan and British actor Lennie James, the series hears Jermain speak to the people who’ve impacted him most both on and off the pitch. These range from Harry Redknapp, Sol Campbell and Les Ferdinand, to the parents of a terminally-ill six-year-old fan he befriended at Sunderland.
They help him to understand how his past experiences have helped influence his more recent choices, as he searches for a new career after football.
Across 12 episodes, Jermain looks into why coaching was so appealing, which eventually leads him back to one of his old clubs, Tottenham Hotspur.
Jermain says: “I love football, it’s been my life. So to continue in the game in my post playing career, the next step for me was always going to be to do my coaching badges and hopefully, one day, become a manager.”
Richard Maddock, Commissioning Editor at BBC Radio 5 Live, says: “Jermain had a glittering career and scored hundreds of goals for club and country, but this podcast dives into the next step of his journey.
“When you hear from the people who are closest to him both on and off the pitch, you really get a feeling that Jermain was always born to coach.”
The first episode of Jermain Defoe: Outside The Box will be available on BBC Sounds on Thursday 9 February, with new episodes released weekly.
