Would You Rent to a Footballer?

Is January too early to begin a blog of footballers' shortcomings? Not on your Nelson. Speccy poster-child Karl Norman has shown the way with this year's first "bad tenant" story. Here is the reportage from Melbourne's trashy Murdoch paper, known locally as The Hun:

TROUBLED AFL footballer Karl Norman has been accused of trashing a home, refusing to pay rent and leaving his landlord thousands of dollars out of pocket.

Norman, who is on $80,000 a year at Carlton, was kicked out of his Maribyrnong home for failing to pay more than $700 rent.

The house was left with smashed windows, damaged plaster, discarded condoms and cigarette burns in its carpet and on window sills.

Landlord Lisa Quinsee said she also found 20 bags of rubbish in her back yard and a club bag full of alcohol when she arrived to clean up her property after Norman and a housemate were evicted.

Yep, not content with earning more money than a high school principal, this 21 year-old burgeoning millionaire owes $700 on back rent and appears to be unable to meet the most basic requirements of holding a lease.

"I took him on as a Carlton footballer. I took him on as a professional footballer," Ms Quinsee said. She said she was shocked at the state of the house, claiming cigarettes had been butted out on the carpet and window sills and the toilet was clogged with newspapers. There were three broken windows, plaster damage in two rooms and abandoned bags of garbage contained decaying food including putrid prawn heads. (Herald Sun, 15/1/05)

While clearly this kind of disrespect is not how civilised people behave, one must suspect the landlady here: why did she take him on in knowing that this prospective tenant was a professional footballer! That should send alarm bells ringing in any owner's head.

When wealth has been handed to you on a plate and the only thing that matters is your team, it's not surprising that there is no respect for other people or their property.

Still, I expect Karl Norman will be first in line for one of (former AFL player) Fraser Brown's flats in Mitcham - if he ever gets them up.

Citations: Herald Sun, 15/1/05

Word Count: 383

Tags: footy, spoilt_rotten, swindle