“I already threw away a high level, prosperous career. I had a lot of talent and was touted to be ‘x, y and z’. I failed, I know how that felt and it’s not going to happen again. I’m happy that those situations happened to me.”
He isn’t the only promising young footballer to fail to live up to the hype. Many players come through an elite academy, some even make their debut, then fail to make the grade and play out their career in the lower leagues.
Some even return to the top and even if they don’t, Manchester City are just as proud of producing academy players who go on to have long careers in the Football League as they are of those who graduate to the first team permanently.
If the career paths of all City academy players were separated into different categories relating to the level they reached, or future careers, there would be one significant outlier: Reece Wabara – the 32-year-old multi-millionaire who swapped football for fashion and never looked back.
After coming through the City ranks from the age of 14, Wabara made his Blues debut on the final day of the 2010/11 season. Loans to Ipswich and Oldham followed – where he scored the winner for Latics in a memorable FA Cup upset against a strong Liverpool side in 2013 under the management of City legend Paul Dickov. He went on to have loan spells at Blackpool and Doncaster before City released him in 2014.
A permanent reunion with Dickov at Doncaster followed, before spells at Barnsley and Wigan. He was floating around League One and the Championship, but off the pitch something else was taking off that ultimately changed his life.
“It’s my fault, I was complacent, I didn’t go hard enough,” Wabara told CEOCAST in December 2022 of his football career. “It was too easy up until 18, then everyone started to catch me up. I was the best player. You’re a kid, you don’t have that understanding. When it’s easy and you don’t know it’s easy until retrospect, you don’t go hard.
“Everybody told me how good I was going to be, that I’d play for England, that I’d be Manchester City’s next right-back. And I wasn’t good enough and everybody caught me up. I went on a few loans, didn’t perform, you know your time is up. I’m very paranoid now that it only takes a year and you’re done, one big mistake and you’re out of the game.”
As Wabara’s City career ended and his quest to return to the top flight began, so did his business – Maniere de Voir. Encouraged to put his passion for fashion into practice by school friend and Gymshark co-founder Lewis Morgan, Wabara was steadily growing the brand on the side during his football career, seeing fellow players and friends in those circles react positively to his designs.
“I was playing for Wigan, we got promoted and I was in the team of the year,” he said. “A member of the management said I’d been fantastic but they felt I was focussing on the business too much. I knew I was playing a game of politics, in that moment, when I started to get the switch… I thought to myself I can’t have my future in someone else’s hands. I had the business, that was me taking that stand, in the moment I was like, ‘you know what, I’m done.’
“People saw me as flashy, not dedicated, focussing on the business. I started the clothing business, people said I just wanted to have a brand. They didn’t see that all of those things were just me as a human being. I bumped into old managers and coaches, they say they saw it in me and I was misunderstood.
“It was too late when I started to prove myself, I had the reputation. You just have to be exceptional from the beginning, it’s very hard to drop down and get back up. It’s the same in football. You don’t see people spoken about as the next best thing, drop down, and then become that best thing.”
Wabara was released by Wigan and spent a year out of the game before returning with Bolton in February 2017. After getting back to match-fitness, the former England under-20 international enjoyed a strong end to the season with the Trotters earning promotion. But by that time his business was taking off and his passion for football declining.
“I decided to completely stop because the business was doing really well and focus is important,” he told the high-performance podcast. “I was 25 or 26, I had to make a choice, what’s more long term? Where can I be the best of the best? And unfortunately at the time I could have played in the Premier League but to be a Champions League, World Cup-winning footballer was low percentage. I had to make the logical choice and that was to continue the business and take it as high as possible.”
Wabara has not looked back, taking Maniere de Voir to turning over millions. He was included in the Sunday Times’ Young Rich List last year with an estimated worth of £83m – above the likes of Marcus Rashford and Stormzy. The company, which has a base in Manchester, has recently opened a flagship store at London’s Oxford Street and Wabara is a frequent user of social media to pass on advice, send aspirational messages and share pictures of his purchases.
He insists he has no regrets over his football career – and given his business success who can blame him – although he does admit he would have done things differently if he had his time again.
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“I already threw away a high level, prosperous career. I had a lot of talent and was touted to be x, y and z,” he told the CEOCAST. “I failed, I know how that felt and it’s not going to happen again. I’m happy that those situations happened to me so now I know that if I can achieve ‘x, y and z’, don’t let myself be the root of that failure.”
“I was at Man City and around really high performing people at the top of their game, watching how they operated on a daily basis,” he explained on High Performance. “I could take knowledge from them and see that’s what I have to do. Whether it’s Aguero, David Silva, they’re always doing the same thing every day no matter their success.
“I wish I’d have learned those skills earlier, or had the intelligence to analyse and observe it, in hindsight I see that person was so consistent and never changed their output and input to their craft. I was a little naive to spot those signs early on. But it definitely aided me in business.
“I’m glad I missed the opportunity of Man City, England, being very highly rated. I was too complacent, that’s the bottom line. I always worked hard but I could have done more. It’s not regret because I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have that. But if I could live life again, I’d be playing in the Champions League or Premier League now.”
Asked if he would be playing at the top level had he approached his football career with the mindset he has now, Wabara was unequivocal. “100 per cent, without a shadow of a doubt,” he said. “But I didn’t so it’s one of those things. At the same time, if I didn’t have that failure or slight regret, I wouldn’t have been able to achieve what I have now.”
Speaking to the Times last year, after his Young Rich List nod, he said: “I honestly don’t feel I’ve achieved that much. I honestly feel like I’m just getting started.”
Few would bet against him.
First published by: Manchester Evening News
