He rejected the soccer dream at 26. Now he’s telling his story through a new passion

By Ben Church, CNN

(CNN) — Standing alone in a Swedish laundromat, Alfie Whiteman set a 10-second timer on his camera and pondered what to do next.

For much of his life as a professional soccer player, there was always someone to make decisions for him – what to eat, where to go and what to wear. Now, alone in unfamiliar surroundings, it was left to him to decide as the timer counted down.

With the pressure on, Whiteman opted for the most random thing he could think of. So he took his clothes off and climbed part way into a washing machine, waiting for the camera to click.

But what appeared at the time as an act of total randomness actually spoke to a wider sense of release for a 20-something who had grown tired of his gilded cage.

The resulting photo ignited a creative spark in Whiteman and marked the beginning of a journey that would ultimately lead him to abandon his own childhood dream at the age of 26.

The photo has since formed part of a portfolio that is now being displayed in a new London exhibition at OOF Gallery – a body of work named “A Loan,” which speaks to the mundanity Whiteman felt living the life as a professional athlete.

Achieving a dream

To understand Whiteman’s story, one must first go back to his childhood growing up in the shadow of White Hart Lane – the old stadium of English Premier League side Tottenham Hotspur.

Like so many kids his age, Whiteman was obsessed with the “Beautiful Game,” and it turned out he was very good at it. He joined Tottenham as a nine-year-old and progressed through the ranks as one of the best goalkeepers in his age in the country.

He eventually turned professional, plying his trade as a backup goalkeeper for the Tottenham first team, barely playing matches but training every day with some of the best soccer stars in the world.

But even while living out his own boyhood dream, Whiteman was having a “constant identity crisis” where he never really felt like a soccer player.

Whiteman recognizes he always was a bit different than his teammates. When others splashed cash on expensive cars, Whiteman would either walk from his nearby home or get public transport to matches.

Because he was never playing games, he was able to live life with relative anonymity.

He also listened to different music, influenced by his father’s interest in jazz. He watched arthouse films and remembers being exposed to the world of art by his parents as a toddler. But after excelling in soccer, those interests went unexplored.

Back then, the sport wasn’t welcoming of alternative hobbies or anything that could be seen as a so-called distraction.

Whiteman laughs as he remembers teammates and coaches calling him a “hippie” for liking what he liked. In the early days, though, those attitudes caused him to somewhat suppress that side of his personality.

It left him with an uncomfortable feeling that he harbored in his late teens, unable to shrug off the gnawing thoughts that there was more to life than soccer.

“I put myself in this prison,” Whiteman told CNN Sports from a coffee shop close to his new London studio.

“I felt like I was missing out. I didn’t have any friends at this point, you know, I hadn’t found my people.”

The log cabin

Things, though, began to change during a loan spell away from Spurs – a temporary transfer to another club.

It was a move born out of frustration, with opportunities in Tottenham’s first team looking slim. So, looking for a change, he jumped at the chance to sign for Swedish club Degerfors IF in 2021. The move took him out of his comfort zone and allowed him to finally play regularly in a league unfamiliar to him.

And while it was a move he enjoyed, he still couldn’t shift the feeling of longing for a different life.

After an initial six-month spell, Whiteman returned to London, but things became even more unsettled. A new manager at Tottenham had made any progression at the club feel harder, and a relationship break-up, combined with the post-Covid world, amplified his feelings of discontent.

Looking for an escape, Whiteman went back to play in Sweden, this time for a full year with Degerfors.

“I’ve got a year where I’m going to, you know, find myself, all those clichés,” he laughed, remembering his thought process at the time.

“I was trying to simplify my life, away from my city life, and also just sort of being a bit unhappy and trying to figure it out.”

During his first stint in Scandinavia, Whiteman had spent some time in a small, rented log cabin in the woods. His hideaway didn’t have the luxury many soccer players would be drawn to, but it was remote enough to allow Whiteman the space needed to contemplate all aspects of his life. During his second spell, it was a refuge he used a lot more.

The cabin life stripped everything back for Whiteman. He spent hours alone with no distractions, with just books to read, podcasts to learn from and music to listen to. But those familiar worries around his identity kept disturbing his peace.

Many an evening was spent alone at the nearby lake, where he would eat his dinner in silence while watching the sunset from the dock.

It was at that time that Whiteman was also establishing himself in new circles, creating networks in the creative worlds of art, fashion and film. If anything, those relationships made the hours he spent playing soccer feel even more like a waste of time.

“One day, I was sitting on the jetty, and it was going to start raining, like really stormy,” he said, remembering a time in Sweden where he felt particularly alone.

“The waves were crashing and I was like ‘Oh my god, this is so sad. This would be such a sad photograph.’

“So the next time I went, I just bought my tripod and took a self-portrait. I then went into my apartment, to the laundry room, and took these weird-ass portraits. It was just me. I had no idea what to do.

“In all the time of me being there, I ended up taking over 600 self-portraits. It essentially became this means of making something. I had no plans on showing this to anyone because it was almost like a photo diary for myself.”

Only now, looking back at those photos, can Whiteman make sense of how he was feeling at the time. They were the first steps of him figuring out his new life, snapshots of what he called “youthful dissatisfaction.”

Confronting his truth

After his loan spell ended, Whiteman returned to London to continue training with Tottenham. Still unable to break into the first team lineup, the feeling of stagnation continued to brew. His life in the sport, he felt, was starting to hold him back from what he really wanted to do.

In 2023, though, he signed a two-year extension to his contract, finding it hard to give up a comfortable life that others would dream of – that he dreamed of once upon a time.

Then, during a preseason tour later that year in which Whiteman had impressed, he suffered a serious injury which ruled him out for months. The resulting time off the grass allowed him to look back at those photos he took in Sweden, a portfolio that impressed the friends he showed.

By the time he was healthy enough to play again, Whiteman was feeling fully motivated to be himself. He no longer cared what the soccer world would say about his other interests and delved into acting and music.

There was still a nagging insecurity, this time that doors were only opening because of his association with Tottenham, but the ball had started rolling and momentum was picking up.

It’s why, in 2025, the goalkeeper finally decided to take the plunge and retire from the sport at 26, declining a move to another English club at the last minute and eventually embarking on his new life as a director and photographer for Somesuch.

During his 17-year spell at Tottenham, he had made just one senior appearance but finished his career with a European medal, being part of the squad that won the Europa League last season.

“Life’s too short, but it was a f**king scary decision,” he said, reflecting on his retirement from the game. “I’ve got bills to pay and I was stepping into a real unknown.”

A creative future

Whiteman said the last months since stepping away from soccer have been the best of his life. While admitting he now looks to save money wherever he can, he’s enjoying having total power to do whatever he wants and is relishing the chance to meet like-minded people.

With the help of therapy, he’s also reframed his previous career. Instead of seeing those formative years as a waste, he now looks at all the “collateral beauty” it brought him.

“It gave me so much and I’m so lucky and fortunate,” he said, speaking about his life as an elite athlete. “How I am today is all shaped by those experiences.”

Since announcing his new exhibition, Tottenham has helped promote it, with the gallery situated next to the team’s stadium. Along with the self-portraits, Whiteman will also display diary entries and an essay he wrote explaining his journey.

It’s something he hopes will be the start of many more creative endeavors to come.

“That feeling of stagnation I had has just been released,” he said.

“I’m just desperate to keep diving in. There’s no limit in terms of what I want to do. It’s just about enjoying the journey, which I have been. It’s quite surreal.”

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