Ex-Tottenham goalkeeper Alfie Whiteman retires aged 27 to become director and photographer | OneFootball

Alfie Whiteman has announced a stark change in career, following the conclusion of the goalkeeper’s contract with Tottenham Hotspur.

Whiteman is retiring from professional football at the age of just 27, as he pursues a new career as a director and photographer.

Whiteman joined Spurs’s academy at the age of 10 and remained with the club – barring two loan spells with Degerfors in Sweden – until May of this year, when his contract expired.

Tottenham opted against renewing the goalkeeper’s deal, and Whiteman, who made a single senior appearance for Spurs, has subsequently decided to leave football altogether.

Whiteman, who has a popular profile on the film-review app Letterboxd, and who hosts a monthly radio show on NTS, announced on Friday that he had signed with the production company Some Such.

Speaking to The Athletic, Whiteman said: “The stereotype of a footballer is generally quite true. It’s the golf, wash-bag culture. I was that young footballer. I wanted the Gucci wash bag 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 guess I always felt a little bit different. My teammates – 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.

Alfie Whiteman in 2019 (Getty Images)

“Football is a short career regardless, even if you do really well, and I knew that I didn’t want to stay in it. It was about trying to gain experience and be proactive in learning about these things I was also interested in, but mainly because I was enjoying it, and was surrounded by the kinds of people that were doing what I enjoyed as a job. They were making things. It was really inspiring.”

Some Such said in an Instagram post: “With an eye attuned to capturing moments of human connection in unseen places, director and photographer Alfie’s work is defined by a curiosity for how culture, identity and community intersect. A former professional footballer with Tottenham Hotspur, Alfie channels the discipline of elite sport into the openness of his creative practice.”

Whiteman, who represented England at youth level, is a boyhood Tottenham fan, having grown up close to – and with a view of – the club’s old stadium. “[My parents] still live in Tottenham, close to the stadium, they can see it from their bathroom window,” he said in a 2023 interview with the club.