The English Premier League reaches a potential global audience of 4.7 billion. This year, the soccer competition turns 25 and will earn close to $7 billion in revenue. Alan Shearer is one of the 
footballers. Still the holder of the EPL goal scoring record, his 18-year career tracks the professionalization of soccer in the U.K and its rise to become a global entertainment juggernaut. This month on ‘Talk Asia’ Shearer sits down with CNN’s Manisha Tank in Hong Kong to discuss his career as the one-time most expensive footballer on earth, life after sport and the link between soccer and dementia.
“I think it is the best league in the world as a whole package. It might not be the best standard-wise but as a whole package… the stadiums, atmosphere, managers, players, and you put all that together and the size of it is just incredible and it’s just been a hell of a success.”
“Well it’s not the players’ fault. If someone is prepared to pay that amount of money, you obviously accept it. Players aren’t worth that much, there’s no doubt about it. I wasn’t worth what I was being paid. There are far more important jobs out there that people do, and work hard, and save lives that are far more worthy of sums of money that footballers get. But, again, that’s the demand that is out there.”
“When you go into football at a young age and certainly as a young professional you realize in the later stages of your life, you’re going to have to run into problems and knee problems and back problems and much like I have. Never did I ever think football could also give you a brain disease i.e. dementia.”
“It was very nerve wracking going in to have the brain scan. As I was going in to have the brain scan the guy said to me ‘you do realize that if we do actually find something nasty in your brain that we’re going to have to tell you’ and I’m thinking… yeah it was nerve wracking because I was probably like a lot of footballers… if there is something I’m not sure I’d want to find out.”
“The one thing that can bring everyone together is football. To have it costing too much money is not right. Everyone should be involved.”
