Ryan Babel has explained why he mocked Ibrahim Afellay in his recently released song Open Letter. “You have the right to be an analyst, but just be yourself.”
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11:47
,,Bro, I don’t know you from Barça, maybe more from PSV. Oh, now you’re an analyst? Hmm, so so. Heard in the corridors you’re broke, bro. You shout things and don’t think about that bro code anymore. But I understand if your career comes to a dead end,” raps Babel in his new song about Afellay, with whom he played thirteen matches at Orange. Afellay himself had no idea why Babel was rapping about him, but Galatasaray’s player explains in a live stream of Kick it Net out how it is.
,,I didn’t mean to explain this, because tomorrow I see the headlines already, but of course this is coming from somewhere. Let me put it this way: as a football player you are in a team with colleagues and you experience a long season together. You play with each other, sometimes against each other, you are part of the Dutch national team and you are also from the same generation. You see such a person as soccer mate. You share things with each other that many people don’t know and you are in trust with each other. A lot of football players become analysts, I don’t judge that, but I do have something like this: just be yourself and know where you come from. Know who your colleagues and you mates were,” says Babylon.
He continues: ,,You have the right to be an analyst. There are plenty of former football players who do their job well as analysts: Khalid Boulahrouz, Hedwiges Maduro. Maduro has criticized me too, but there are different ways you can criticize. Especially if you yourself have been a footballer who had a certain hatred towards the media. When Ibrahim was a football player and we were with the Dutch national team, he looked up to doing interviews. He tried to get out of it. Now he turns his tongue and takes on a different character. And not only me, but also fellow footballers. Everyone’s like, what happened to that man? Of course this comes from somewhere: I didn’t wake up overnight with the idea of dissing someone. I’m not like that.”
Babel also mentions what he had trouble with with Afellay: ,,In this case it was in the run-up to the last European Championship. Analysts discussed the players who should and who should not. I don’t give a shit. I didn’t come, but I’ve been around long enough to know how it is shit works. I was disappointed with the way he got along with the analysts trying to ridicule me. I’m not saying he shouldn’t criticize, because I’ve been criticized my entire career, it doesn’t bother me. But it was ridiculing instead of criticizing. Then I think: hey, we played tournaments together, hung out and chilled together.”
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