Collymore: Young guns are being milked

25 September 2016 - 02:00 By BBC

Former Aston Villa striker Stan Collymore says young footballers are "milked like a cow" and are not given enough help off the pitch. The 45-year-old wrote an open letter to Villa midfield player Jack Grealish this week after the 21-year-old was reportedly involved in an all-night party.Collymore told BBC Radio 5 live: "I am concerned. Where are the mentors? Where are the people in the dressing rooms?"Footballers are produce, there to be milked like a cow. When they are surplus to requirements they are dispensed with."Collymore highlighted some of the issues facing young footballers.story_article_left1He told 5 live: "What happens with younger players, and I have seen it at various clubs, is that they're a target. A magnet. People want to get into places on the back of them, want to sell them stuff, want them to supply a lifestyle."These young players have a lot of disposable income and they end up paying for holidays, paying for trips, weekends away. I've seen it, lived it, breathed it."It's very difficult when you have 20 or 30 people around you saying nice things, being nice to you, to look at the motives of every single person."What Jack needs to do is be like Michael Owen when he broke on to the scene. Do the boring stuff, have a game of snooker, have a cup of coffee, play a computer game - become boring. If you go down the other route then you get a reputation and it becomes very difficult to be a professional footballer."Grealish is the subject of an internal investigation by Aston Villa, whose new owner Tony Xia called Grealish via Twitter on Wednesday, saying: "As I said before, focus every minute, on and off the pitch, choose the right people to be with."Collymore thinks the senior players in the teams' dressing rooms should take more responsibility...

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