How Premier League Star Went From £10,000-A-Week Career To £400 CLEANING TOILETS (PHOTOS)
These grainy images reveal the amazing descent of former Premier League star Kevin Kyle from international football ace to ship’s cleaner.
Reformed gambler Kyle has traded a lavish £10,000-a-week career with Sunderland and Rangers for stacking boxes and cleaning toilets.
The 33-year-old now earns just £800-a-fortnight – a fraction of his former paypacket – working on board a fleet of ships in the Shetland Islands designed to cater for offshore workers
And sources claim managers on board the 300-capacity ship have warned his new workmates not to discuss the goalscorer’s former life as a footballer.
When the Daily Record contacted Kyle, who once admitted blowing £700
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Storeman: Kyle
Stranraer-born Kyle works on the Regina Baltic ship in Lerwick’s remote Mairs Quay – a 16-hour, 400-mile trip from his former home at Ibrox.
Our amazing images show Kyle working a 12-hour shift for employers Sodexo, stacking boxes and chatting with friends over a tea-break in the communal room.
A source said: “Kevin started work on the ship earlier this month. It’s sad really to see someone who was obviously well-loved by the fans seemingly ending his career relatively early.
Stranraer-born Kyle works on the Regina Baltic ship in Lerwick’s remote Mairs Quay – a 16-hour, 400-mile trip from his former home at Ibrox.
Our amazing images show Kyle working a 12-hour shift for employers Sodexo, stacking boxes and chatting with friends over a tea-break in the communal room.
A source said: “Kevin started work on the ship earlier this month. It’s sad really to see someone who was obviously well-loved by the fans seemingly ending his career relatively early.
The MS Regina Baltica
“He’s a good lad and everyone gets on with him but he now has to work gruelling shifts and cater for other people – it must be quite a turnaround from his previous life.
“He doesn’t want to talk about his career as a footballer. His managers told people not to mention it.”
Kyle – whose contract with League One minnows Ayr United is thought to have been scrapped earlier this year – began working on the ship on July 8.
Kyle, who signed for the Ibrox team in August 2012, said: “There are guys at Rangers who can’t believe their luck at what they earn.“He’s a good lad and everyone gets on with him but he now has to work gruelling shifts and cater for other people – it must be quite a turnaround from his previous life.
“He doesn’t want to talk about his career as a footballer. His managers told people not to mention it.”
Kyle – whose contract with League One minnows Ayr United is thought to have been scrapped earlier this year – began working on the ship on July 8.
“I remember a fellow pro phoning me in the summer and, because I had read about it in a paper, I asked him: ‘Did Rangers really offer you that amount?’
“And he said to me: ‘You know what? I think I could actually get even more off them.’
“You are thinking to yourself: ‘Third division football and they are going to be earning £350,000 or £400,000 a year? And they would go higher still?’”
In an injury-ravaged season with Rangers, Kyle made eight appearances and scored three goals.
He previously revealed how he “p***ed his wages up the wall gambling” during a spell at Coventry City.
In a 2010 newspaper interview he said: “Sometimes in life money is not everything. I know a lot of people disagree with that but I had all the money years ago when I played with Sunderland and Coventry and I p***** it up a wall gambling.
“So money doesn’t always make you happy. The happiest I have been was the first year at Kilmarnock, playing football and knowing what my wage was.”
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