The Tottenham Thread

BENOIT ASSOU-EKOTTO has launched an astonishing attack on football's celebrity culture and branded players greedy, arrogant and two-faced.

Spurs' Cameroon defender admits he is only in the game for the money and reveals he has little time for most of his fellow professionals.

Assou-Ekotto, 26, kicks off his amazing tirade with a jibe about "prostitute sha**er" Wayne Rooney.

But he has plenty more to say about life in the Premier League and insisted: "The whole problem with football players is that they really take themselves seriously.

"We kick a ball around and we earn 100,000, 200,000 or even 300,000 euros a week. We don't improve the world. It's not like we invented hot water. We just kick a ball.

"But sometimes when these guys go out, you'd think they were rock stars.

"I could understand that you wear dark glasses at night time when you do open-heart surgery and save lives, but not if you're a footballer.

"I'm not in the same world as most of the people in football. I really don't like this world.

"These people didn't feed me, they didn't bring me into the world and my life won't improve by going to a nightclub and drinking loads of champagne.

"I prefer to support players like Deco, who has used his fame to go back to Brazil to help some charities. I also like players of temperament like Edgar Davids.

"The year I arrived at Spurs we were at each other's throats on the pitch, loads of insults, because we didn't agree. But afterwards we said 'hello' to each other like men.

"I prefer people like that to someone who says 'it's no big deal' and then goes and complains to the coach and says there's a problem.

"My view is whether you're a billionaire, Miss World or whoever, if I have to say 'f*** off' to you, then that is what I'll say."

Assou-Ekotto, a £3million buy from Lens four years ago, has a history of speaking his mind.

He was at the centre of a furious bust-up with a Spurs fan after last season's home defeat by Wolves and had to be pulled away from a confrontation by White Hart Lane stewards.

And he has never made any secret of the fact he came to play in England for the money.

That is why he believes the incredible wages earned by today's stars make it laughable the French team could even think of going on strike during this summer's World Cup finals in South Africa.

In an interview with French football magazine So Foot, he added: "I understood from a very early age that it didn't interest me to work in an office for 1,000 euros a month, see the same faces every day and work 45 years to buy a house. That's a rather sad life.

"I was gifted at sports and quickly tried to find a cushy number. And today I have a great job. I work a maximum of two hours a day and I do it to make money, like anybody else in the world."

Spurs boss Harry Redknapp might not be sending him to an institution.But Assou-Ekotto could well find himself in the naughty corner, for he could hardy have chosen a worse moment to make himself the most hated man at Old Trafford and give United more motivation.

However, Redknapp believes United are starting to lose their dominance in English football. He said: "Sir Alex has had so many great players and built so many great teams, but they cannot go on forever.

"Giggs, Scholes, Neville - they have been unbelievable players. But it's very hard to keep producing teams like the Treble one of 1999.

"Is it a good time to play United? They are still great, but they are not as good as they were when Ronaldo and Rooney were in the team."