Outside Football
In the early 1990s, Sharpe was part of a new direction in football that saw photogenic players like himself, Jamie Redknapp and Ryan Giggs emerge as merchandising and mass marketed "poster boys" of the game, and fronted many football magazine covers and featured in advertisements. By the mid-1990s, these players, some of whom had become known as Spice Boys, had become icons in football already, in an era when football stars had become idols on par with rock stars and pop stars. Sharpe was known for his lifestyle off the pitch as much as he had on it at the time, though these endorsement deals quieted down after he left Manchester United in 1996.
Since 2009, Sharpe has been involved with global football charity, Ambassadors in Sport. His first involvement came after a trip to South Africa and an unscheduled invite to visit an AIS Hope Academy in a South African Prison. Since then he has been involved at different levels with AIS, including Cycle for Hope, a 6 month cycle through Africa which Sharpe was involved in publicity and also took part in the last leg.
Sharpe is currently the spokesperson for the investment company comparethefinancialmarkets.com and is due to open the Lee Sharpe Football Academy in Natal, Brazil in 2011.
Lee Sharpe has always been known for his flamboyant haircuts and style. He has been a regular at MOD:Salons in Chapel Allerton in Leeds for many years.
Read more about this topic: Lee Sharpe
Famous quotes containing the word football:
“In football they measure forty-yard sprints. Nobody runs forty yards in basketball. Maybe you run the ninety-four feet of the court; then you stop, not on a dime, but on Miss Liberty’s torch. In football you run over somebody’s face.”
—Donald Hall (b. 1928)
“In this dream that dogs me I am part
Of a silent crowd walking under a wall,
Leaving a football match, perhaps, or a pit,
All moving the same way.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)