Micah Richards opens up about ‘guilt’ of ‘picking work over family’ and says he plans to retire by age 45

Micah Richards said he plans to retire from broadcasting in 10 years to prioritize his loved ones after years of “picking work over family,” both as a former player and as a broadcaster.

“I’m retiring in 10 years is because the guilt I have with myself, not being there for the people who’d given me the opportunity to do what I needed to do. I’m picking work over family,” Richards said on the latest episode of Kickin’ It on CBS Sports Golazo Network. “I’ve got a goal. My goal is to get to 45, do the best I can possibly do and then I’m out. I’m out of the game.”

Richards, an analyst for CBS Sports’ UEFA Champions League coverage and a Premier League champion with Manchester City, detailed the sacrifices he made working in soccer as both a player and broadcaster.

“Since I made my debut when I was, what, 17, I’ve been on the road, made my England debut at 18,” he said. “The way my career ended, I went straight into punditry. The amount of birthdays I’ve missed, the amount of Christmases I’ve missed, the amount of just good conversations I’ve missed with people.”

He cited his relationship with his father, who is originally from Saint Kitts and Nevis, as an example, which he said declined in the latter stages of his career before he retired from playing at age 31 in 2019.

“My dad was, without being cringe, like my best friend. He’d been to every game, he’d been to every training session,” Richards said. “When my career started declining, the relationship between me and him was just getting – I don’t even know the right words to articulate because you always speak to your parents, don’t you, but in terms of being with them all the time and then, we just became very disconnected. … In my culture, where I’m from, the love that you get is in a different way. It’s not really, ‘I love you, son.’ It’s just them being there, you know?”

Richards, 36, said he is telling the story now because his father has “not been doing well,” which has changed their relationship in some ways.

“[I] go to the hospital, it’s the first time I’ve seen my dad cry. He’s 60-odd [years old],” Richards said. “He was crying. He was saying, ‘I’m sorry. I apologize. I’ll sort myself out. No problem.’ … I just feel [that] he felt embarrassed. I had a conversation and I said to him, ‘I’m sorry for not being there.’ I’m sorry that, not in terms of financial but just that support – talking.”

The ex-England international also said his relationship with his father has also changed after the birth of his own son.

“I’ve got an eight-year-old son and when you’re a parent, all your love, affection, time goes into that and you know me,” Richards said. “I want to be the best I can be whether it’s punditry, whether it be football, whether it be [being a] parent and ever since I had my son, all my energy goes into him and my dad, I feel sorry for him because he gave me so much, but I feel like it’s flipped now and I’ve sort of left him in the background. The reason I’m telling you all this is because I’ve lost two, three years.”

Making up for lost time, he said, is the main reason he wants to call time on his broadcasting career in a decade.

“I will tell you now, I’m retiring in 10 years is because the guilt I have with myself, not being there for the people who’d given me the opportunity to do what I needed to do. I’m picking work over family,” Richards said. “I believe if I was with my dad more, this wouldn’t have happened and people will say, ‘well, you can’t blame yourself,’ but I do.”

‘I don’t like the football lifestyle’

Though his son loves soccer, Richards also said he does not want his son following in his footsteps because of the new realities of being a public figure in the age of social media.

“I don’t like the football lifestyle,” he said. “I don’t feel like it’s a real world. I think there’s too much pressure. I feel like social media has worked amazingly well for us, especially our show as well … but there’s too much pressure for the footballers nowadays. When I was coming through, yeah, a lot of players got released and stuff but social media wasn’t a thing so there was less sort of embarrassment. Now, you got players being abused online for missing a shot, you know? It’s ridiculous and I just feel like it’s a very lonely, lonely life, being a footballer.”