Footballers Unfiltered (FIFPRO)

Join ex-England and Manchester City goalkeeper Joe Hart for Footballers Unfiltered. This series, brought to you by FIFPRO, is a project which explores what life as a professional footballer is really like. 

With a new episode each month through 2025, expect topics that explore both the men’s and women’s game, highlighting player stories and challenges which many people don’t see, and shining a light on how player unions are tackling these issues.

In this episode we explore match-fixing and the threat it poses to open and fair competition today. To do this, Joe Hart is joined by Samir Arab. Samir plays as a defender for Maltese club Balzan. In 2016, Samir met a former teammate in a cafe and a chat over a coffee led to Samir being banned from football for two years. 

Did you know that 1 in 10 of footballers today will be approached in their careers to fix a match, or part of a match, for the benefit of others. There are many ways in which match-fixing is being tackled, and in this show we look at what match-fixing is, and explore how simple it can be for a player to be mixed up in it. We then look at the work which FIFPRO have undertaken to create a ‘red button’ app where players can anonymously report any approach to fix a match.

In 2016, a former team-mate of Arab’s met him in a café and tried to convince the defender to manipulate a Malta U-21 game by losing each half by one goal in return for thousands of euros. Arab refused – the game finished 1-0 and Arab was praised by his coach for his performance – and he later cooperated with police investigations, despite fearing repercussions from criminal gangs, which led to court convictions for the perpetrators. 

However, football authorities hit Arab with a two-year ban as he did not immediately inform them about the match-fixing approach. 

Joining both Samir and Joe is Roy Vermeer. Roy is the legal director at FIFPRO and personally represented Samir as his case was heard. Roy talks about the significance of the Red Button app  and results he’s seen since the implementation and shares with us other cases in world football. 

This show contains references to suicidal thoughts and mental health struggles. 

If you are affected by what you hear, we encourage you to seek help at these places.

Samaritans International

https://samaritanshope.org/resources/international-help/ 

Mental health support

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/guides-to-support-and-services/seeking-help-for-a-mental-health-problem/where-to-start/

This episode is uniquely available to watch as a video on Spotify. 

To discover more about FIFPRO and their 60th anniversary, visit:

Follow for more on X:https://x.com/FIFPro?mx=2

Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/fifpro/

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/FIFPRO/ 

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/company/fifpro/posts/?feedView=all

YouTube::https://www.youtube.com/user/FIFProTV/videos

TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@fifpro 

This is a podcast made by Message Heard for FIFPRO.

Football’s relationship with food is the focus for this episode of Footballers Unfiltered with Joe Hart. This is because, in 2024, FIFPRO revealed that one-in-five women's players experienced disordered eating over a 12-month period, according to a survey of footballers participating in a study tracking their health. 

Disordered eating is an unhealthy relationship with food which covers many behaviours such as restricting food intake and excessive exercising. Some thoughts, behaviours and attitudes will overlap with eating disorders, but that term is reserved for those experiences which have received clinical diagnosis.

Molly Bartrip, who plays for Tottenham Hotspur as a defender, joins Joe to talk about how she came to realise the hard way that food is her fuel. Molly says “every pre-match I have pasta, regardless if it's 12 o'clock kick-off. Before I would have like a slice of toast maybe in the evening before a game, then I had that reality check that I was not performing and going to get dropped”.

Molly talks candidly with Joe about her battle with anorexia nervosa, depression and anxiety. It started at 14 years of age after an injury set-back when on international duty with England, at a time when she was playing for Arsenal’s youth sides. “For some reason my mind just had a switch. I didn’t feel good enough. I had no control over England selection, Arsenal selection, but I had control of what I was putting in my body. I'm just not going to eat,”

Now 28, Molly has over 10 years’ experience playing in England’s Women’s Super League, having represented Reading before moving to current club Spurs in July 2021. She talks openly about mental health and says “We put so much emphasis on injuries in football, but why do we not for the mental side of the game? I do think there's a long way to go, but we’re getting there. 

Both Joe and Molly are joined by Dr Alex Culvin, a former player with AZ Alkmaar, Everton, Leeds United and Liverpool, and now FIFPRO’s Director of Global Policy and Strategic Relations for Women’s Football. As part of Alex’s PHD research in 2019, she investigated the health effects on WSL players after England's top-flight became professionalised and found evidence of fat shaming and eating disorders amongst players. 

Alex says "In the women's game, where we have this acceleration of professionalisation in some parts of the world, we can't forget the key components that enable players to perform and feel like they can thrive as a human being; nutrition, mental health support and psychologists are fundamental to resource the game properly and ensure that we have players who feel supported."

If you are affected by what you hear, we encourage you to seek help in the following ways: 

• Check with your GP and for national hotlines

• Talk to a trained therapist/mental health professional and check therapy services specialised in eating disorders for individuals

• Check online resources available in your language

  
  

To discover more about FIFPRO and their 60th anniversary, visit:

Follow for more on X: https://x.com/FIFPro?mx=2

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fifpro/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FIFPRO/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fifpro/posts/?feedView=all

YouTube:: https://www.youtube.com/user/FIFProTV/videos
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fifpro 

This is a podcast made by Message Heard for FIFPRO.

Host: Joe Hart

Executive Producer: Sandra Ferrari

Producer: Mark Kendrick

Production Coordinator: Kirsty McLean 

Videographer and editor: Ethan Judd

Audio and Mix Engineer: Lizzy Andrews

Australian midfielder Josh Cavallo is the guest for this episode of Footballers Unfiltered with Joe Hart, reflecting on the last four years since coming out publicly as gay in professional men’s football. At the time in October 2021, Cavallo, then 21, was the only current openly gay male top-flight professional footballer. He made the announcement in a video and open letter on social media.

Josh tells Joe candidly about the moment he first told his coaches “it felt like 15 kilos of weight had been lifted off my shoulders” and he went on to having the best training session. He explained why he decided to let the world know “I got to a point in my life where I wanted to live authentically; I felt quite stuck and it did affect my mental health quite a lot. Looking back, it was the best move and decision I've ever made”.

In 2025 FIFA estimates there are around 130,000 professional football players in the men’s game, yet there are only a few current active players who have come out publicly, such as Jake Daniels and Jakub Jankto. It raises questions about how men’s football can be more inclusive to create a supportive environment where gay players feel comfortable about being open with their sexual orientation. 

In the episode, Joe Hart acknowledged that “men's football still has a long way to go before everyone truly feels included, as well as represented in the sport”. The former England international said: “I've been around football for a long, long time. Conversations about sexuality, gay players being in the dress room, it's always been a hot topic, something that the media seemed to drive a lot more than players, if I'm being brutally honest, but it felt like it was always there. It felt like a huge relief when [Josh] stepped up in 2021 and was just honest.”Joe said “I look in dressing rooms now and towards the end of my career, I was lucky enough to realise that just being yourself and being honest was such an empowering thing.”

FIFPRO’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Manager Erica Puppo, who joined Cavallo and Hart for the episode, said: “I think now, with stories like Josh, there's more and more awareness that these conversations need to happen, and they need to happen within a men's football context as well”. 

This show contains references to LGBTQIA+ mental health struggles. 

If you are affected by what you hear, we encourage you to seek help in the following ways: 

• Check with your GP and for national hotlines

• Talk to a trained therapist/mental health professional and check therapy services specialised in LGBTQIA+ individuals

• Check online resources available in your language

To discover more about FIFPRO and their 60th anniversary, visit:

Follow for more on X: https://x.com/FIFPro?mx=2

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fifpro/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FIFPRO/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fifpro/posts/?feedView=all

YouTube:: https://www.youtube.com/user/FIFProTV/videos

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fifpro 

This is a podcast made by Message Heard for FIFPRO.

Host: Joe Hart

Executive Producer: Sandra Ferrari

Producer: Mark Kendrick

Production Coordinator: Kirsty McLean 

Videographer and editor: Ethan Judd

Audio and mix Engineer: Lizzy Andrews

For the first episode in the series, Joe Hart is joined by Juventus and Italy legend Giorgio Chiellini to discuss life beyond football. 

During his trophy-laden career, Giorgio attended university in his early twenties to study business administration. Even today he recalls the experience fondly, “what I didn’t expect was that my journey at university was also really useful for my sports performances. It was a way in which I was able to open my mind, be focused and train the brain in a different way”. 

The chat with Giorgio highlights the importance of why players today should be thinking about their life after football, with some key advice and personal antidotes from both Joe and Giorgio who both have taken the leap into a second life recently. 

Joe and Giorgio also talk about some key moments in the Euro 2020 final between England and Italy, and whether his interaction with Harry Kane just before the championship-deciding penalty shootout was gamesmanship. 

Joining both Joe and Giorgio is Chris Higgins. Chris himself is a former player in Scotland and made over 560 senior appearances. Since retiring he has become the Personal Development Manager at PFA Scotland.

Chris shares the observations he sees with footballers today thinking about life after football. He talks about how PFA Scotland provides training for all manner of jobs and industries, even including being a professional barista. 

For more on PFA Scotland and the initiatives they run, visit https://pfascotland.co.uk/education/

This episode is uniquely available to watch as a video on Spotify. 

To discover more about FIFPRO and their 60th anniversary, visit:

Follow for more on X: https://x.com/FIFPro?mx=2

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fifpro/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FIFPRO/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fifpro/posts/?feedView=all

YouTube:: https://www.youtube.com/user/FIFProTV/videos

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fifpro 

Footballers Unfiltered is a Message Heard production for FIFPRO.