Former football star is using early retirement to help those less fortunate

Steve Zakuani's football career has taken a lot of unexpected twists and turns, but he's moved on each time and found the positives.

After failing to make the grade at Arsenal as a youngster, he took his chance at the University of Akron and made it to MLS as the first draft pick. After a broken leg left him out of action for 500 days, he came back with a vengeance and returned to scoring ways with the Seattle Sounders. And now, after injuries forced him into retirement in his mid-20s, he has taken the opportunity to spend more hours with Kingdom Hope, the charity he set up aimed at combining education and sports. JOE caught up with Zakuani to discuss some of his off-field work, and how it has impacted those who need a helping hand. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8apwGZbriM How are you adjusting to life away from football? I'm 7 or 8 months into retirement and it's pretty good. It was the right time to walk away so I’ve not really missed playing or anything like that. I’ve just enjoyed going into a new life or a new lane, so it’s been decent. I wanted to take a year out, but when I retired I wrote a book (called '500 Days') about a lot of the injuries I dealt with and the mental side that comes with that, just to help other athletes and other people. That book did really well and ended up opening a lot of doors with going to speak to different sports teams, universities and corporate companies, and it became a full-time thing. I’ve spent a lot of time connecting with different groups after being invited as a guest speaker, which has been fun. It’s definitely a change of pace from having to go into training every day, it’s still busy but I’m also taking a bit of time to enjoy life at kind of a slower pace. How has your charity work grown since retirement? In 2010 when I was still playing with the Sounders I started a charity, Kingdom Hope. Since retiring I’ve been able to spend a lot more time on it. I have a pretty decent group of people working with me, which means I have time to travel around and speak at different events. One of the things we do at Kingdom Hope is hand out scholarships to children in Africa – these are students who would never be able to afford university, but we partner with another organisation to provide a fund to pay for their tuition, their room, their board and their food for a whole year. Another thing we do is buy textbooks for university students in America. They’re expensive right now, and we’ve partnered with a local university here in Seattle to supply textbooks for the students. Also, unlike in the UK, kids in America pay a lot of money to play what you’d call club soccer. It’s not like in England where you can just join a Sunday league team, you’ve got to pay. So we’re starting a programme where we give out scholarships for kids at youth level so they can afford to pay their registration, their travel and the money for their kits. You've started doing TV work with your old club, Seattle Sounders. What's it like being on the other side of things? A lot of the guys there were my team-mates, but the thing with the Sounders is I was drafted there in 2009 when it was the team’s first year as well as mine, and I was the first ever draft pick, so I grew up in the organisation and got to know everyone from the top down. From the owners, to the general manager, to the coaches, to the physios and the equipment guys, the ladies who make the tea, the guys who park our cars – I know everyone in the organisation so for me it’s like a big family in a sense. When I walk in the stadium to do my job for the broadcaster it takes me 25 minutes to get up to the studio because I’m stopping every two minutes to catch up with people. Then obviously some of the guys on the pitch are good friends of mine. Osvaldo Alonso is a very good friend of mine, we played together since the beginning, Brad Evans was there since the beginning, Lamar Neagle too, and I’m very good friends with Obafemi Martins who’s just a tremendous player. These are the few I know outside of the game now. It’s weird having to analyse them sometimes but they understand I’m doing my job and I think I’m doing a pretty good job so far – I’ve only had one text from the head coach saying “tone it down a bit”, so it’s been pretty good! https://twitter.com/SoundersFC/status/588821567628398592 Why do you think 500 Days resonated with so many people? When I made my comeback from injury I got a lot of messages and letters. It was up in the thousands, letters from around the world, and it wasn’t just football players. There were teachers, doctors, and I knew then right away that it was a story that went beyond sports. Then when I wrote the book a lot of athletes responded – some were team-mates who have had injuries, not even serious ones like I had but any kind of injury that keeps you out of the team for three, four, five weeks - you start to feel like a bit of an outcast. With the mental side of that, they’ve just been saying they’ve read the book or they’ve read different blog posts I wrote, and it’s helped them through. But just in general, there have been lots of little kids who love the story of how I came up from London and ended up playing at a pretty decent level here in the States, and then it’s resonated with people across the board from all walks of life because the whole idea of overcoming adversity is something these people face in their own lives and their own ways. The book ended up capturing a lot of people because a lot of them were football fans and a lot of them knew my story, and then reading it in detail gave them a new way to look at it that they could apply to their own lives. Tell us a little more about the second book After I retired I got to do a bit of travelling, and I’ve been doing a lot more speaking. I’ve never been on the side of the guy who’s been able to travel and watch other people in their craft, until now. I got to watch a lot of NFL players when they were training and it was interesting to watch that as it’s so different to our world. Then one of my good friends who’s a rapper from Tottenham, I got to watch him in his studio session. Then I just got the idea to go around and interview a lot of successful people, but interview them about their biggest failures. So I have Clint Dempsey (Zakuani's team-mate in Seattle) – I sat with him and talked about the times he’s made mistakes – there’s also an NFL player, a musician, one of the top doctors in Seattle, a couple of businessmen...I want to show that you can fail big and still become successful. The working title is The Other Side of Success - that title might change, though I’m pretty happy with it.