England manager would like to have been a pilot

Fabio Capello made his professional football debut as an eighteen-year-old, and has been a key figure in the beautiful game ever since. Had he not discovered his talent for kicking a piece of leather, and subsequent talent for telling other people how to kick a piece of leather, the manager would have taken an entirely different career path.

He told the Italian edition of Marie Claire:

‘If I had not become a footballer, I would have flown Boeings. Football is just a job to me. The three things I could not give up are my own home, my family and travelling.’

While a career in flying for the military would probably be unlikely for a man who needs to wear glasses, it would not be a problem for a commercial pilot flying Boeings. A career in the airline industry would also have helped Capello avoid the shine of the media spotlight. While he may enjoy the benefits of fame, being an anonymous citizen would have made it much easier to keep his penchant for massive tax evasion under wraps.

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Well-coiffed midefielder flouts anti-terrorism rules

Pilot Pablo Mason is a hero. Not only has he grown a moustache that most men could only dream of owning, but he led Tornado jets on 23 bombing missions over Iraq during the Gulf War, sticking it to Saddam on each occasion. However, thanks to his decision to accommodate the whims of Robbie Savage, the 57-year-old has lost his £90k a year pilot job:

Captain Mason, who became an airline pilot after leaving the RAF, lost his job after taking Blackburn Rovers home on a private charter flight following a match in Finland in August.

His crime was to allow one of the players, Robbie Savage, to spend most of the three-hour journey on the Airbus A320’s flight deck to help allay his fear of flying.

Flight deck visits have been banned since 9/11, but Mason protested during his employment tribunal with “bureaucratic nincompoops” MyTravel Thomas Cook that a Premiership footballer did not pose a terrorist threat.

[The Telegraph]