Emmanuel Adebayor has stressed that while he isn’t entirely happy in the first circle of Hell, it definitely beats playing for Aston Villa or West Ham. The Togolese striker descended into the underworld after Tim Sherwood left Tottenham, setting himself up in the increasingly affluent fifth region of limbo – the Hell of the Wantaway Footballer. The realm of the Wantaway Footballer, which only gets a passing mention in Dante’s Inferno, is quite different from the other parts of the fiery abyss, containing significantly fewer dismembered skeletons, less frequent gnashing of teeth and many more super cars, glamour models and sprawling mansion houses.
And while other cursed souls such as Mario Balotelli have escaped the bowels of football’s nether-world as quickly as possible, Adebayor has found that limbo is to his liking.
“I weighed up my options and it came down to languishing in a joyless, infinite inertia or playing for Aston Villa. For me that’s a pretty easy choice,” Adebayor told FFT via Cerberus, the gatekeeper to the underworld.
“I’ve got a pretty nice little place in limbo just around the corner from where Saido Berahino’s moving in next week. We might even go for a kickaround.
“£170,000 per week is worth enduring the gradual disintegration of my soul and the interminable howls of the damned, and to be honest those have quietened down a lot since Robbie [Roberto Soldado] left.”
However, Adebayor did express his fear that unless he redeems himself he may be cast into the third circle of Hell, reserved for players who wasted their obvious talent and are forced to forever write blogs for betting companies.
“Of course that scares me,” Adebayor admitted via multi-headed hell-hound Cerberus. “The thought of spending the rest of eternity grinding out a 250-word prediction for Stoke vs Swansea is horrifying to anyone.
“I’d rather end up in the circle of the failed managers – at least they get to spend the rest of time telling everyone how there’s an important period coming up before their team continually leaks last-minute equalisers to lower mid-table teams.”
