Roberto Carlos Says He Lost 99 Per Cent Of What Football Paid Him
Lisbon · Saturday 26 September 2026
Roberto Carlos, the Brazil and Real Madrid great, one of the finest left-backs the game has produced and a World Cup and Champions League winner, has said he lost 99 per cent of everything he earned in football because of family problems and agents. He was speaking at the Portugal Football Summit.
If it can happen to him
He played at the very top for nearly two decades and earned accordingly. If a player of that stature can lose almost everything, the risk to a Nigerian player who earns a fraction of it, for a fraction of the time, is obvious and enormous.
Where the money goes
| Risk | What would reduce it |
|---|---|
| Agents with conflicts of interest | Independent legal advice on every contract |
| Family expectation to fund everyone | A plan agreed before the money arrives |
| A career that ends at thirty-three | Saving as if it ends at twenty-eight |
None of this is complicated. Almost none of it is taught.
Football pays a young man more than he has ever seen for ten years, then stops. Nobody sits him down on the first day and says so.
The useful takeaway
Nigeria sends more young players to foreign academies than almost any country in Africa, and spends almost nothing on what happens to their money. A mandatory financial course attached to every NFF youth call-up would cost almost nothing, and Roberto Carlos has just provided the opening slide.
Reporting: Complete Sports and the Portugal Football Summit.
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