Tottenham confirm retirement of Europa League winner | OneFootball

Spurs academy graduate was on the bench when Spurs beat Manchester United in Bilbao

Tottenham have confirmed the retirement of Alfie Whiteman.

The goalkeeper, 27, has decided to hang up his gloves after leaving Spurs at the end of last season.

Whiteman came through the academy at Spurs and made one first-team appearance.

He did not start a single first-team game for Spurs in a five-year stint in the first-team fold.

Whiteman spent two seasons at Degerfors in the Swedish top flight in 2021 and 2022.

He has decided not to continue his football career and moved away from the game completely.

Whiteman has revealed he will be joining production company Somesuch as a photographer and a film director.

“I signed for Spurs at 10 years old,” Whiteman told The Athletic.

“Then I left school at 16 and went straight into this full-time life of football. When I was around 17 or 18, living in digs, I just had this feeling inside of, ‘Is this it?’ Getting on the mini bus, going to training, doing a sports science BTEC and going home to play video games. I realised, ‘Oh, I’m not happy here’ from quite a young age.

“The stereotype of a footballer is generally quite true. It’s the golf, washbag culture. I was that young footballer. I wanted the Gucci washbag and I drove the Mercedes. You all just become a reflection of each other. You’re a product of your environment. It’s the way football is in this country; it’s so shut off from anything else. You go to training and then you go home, that’s it.

“I always felt a little bit different. My team-mates — who I got on well with — called me a hippie. That was their definition. But then, when I was 18, I met my ex-girlfriend, who was a model. She was a bit older than me. Her best friend was a director. It just started opening my eyes to what life has to offer.

“So as I was getting a bit older around 18 or 19, I started meeting new people and realising a bit more about myself, and understanding the football bubble, because it’s so insular.”

Whiteman grew up in Tottenham and was a product of the club’s youth system. He did not play for another club in England during his short career.

“I learned a lot,” he said of his time at Spurs.

“I was in a new environment, in nature. I’ve got this exhibition coming up in spring about a body of work I did while I was there, which is all these self-portraits and weird things. I never planned it to be, but it served as this period of introspection. I look at the work now, and these feelings of being a bit lost or torn are in it. That was in 2022, so it’s always been there.”

“My house is two minutes from the stadium,” he continued.

“I used to walk to the home games. So the bus goes past my road, my sister, my best friend who lives at the house with me, they’re there waving from my street.”