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Micah Richards intends to quit punditry by 2034.
The former England and Manchester City star-turned-broadcaster says he wants to ‘give something back’ to his hometown outside football in the long run.
Richards, 38, is currently working on World Cup coverage with the BBC as well as Gary Lineker’s The Rest Is Football podcast.
The ex-defender, who also works for Sky Sports and CBS Sports during the season, has been to New York and back three times during the tournament.
‘I’ll be out of all this by the time I turn 46,’ he told the Daily Telegraph.
‘You won’t see me on any mainstream media beyond the 2034 World Cup. That will be the last time I am on the BBC or Sky or CBS. I’ve told them all this and they think I’m joking. I’m not.
Micah Richards says he will quit punditry by the end of the 2034 World Cup in Saudi Arabia
‘I’ve given so much of my life to football since leaving school at 14, but when the time comes I want to make a difference to people’s lives at a grass-roots level – to help those who need it most, especially young people.
‘I come from Chapeltown in Leeds. It’s an area where there is so much talent, but a shortage of opportunity. I want to give something back. That’s my aim. I’ve no idea what form that will take, yet. There’s plenty of time to work that out.
‘You see a lot of ex-footballers put their names to foundations, which is great, but I want to do something more than giving money to charity or showing my face at an event once a year. Hopefully I can keep doing what I am doing for the next seven years – and just make sure I don’t get cancelled before then!’
Despite being younger than many of his fellow pundits, Richards aims to live more offline than others.
He says that he took himself off X because of the widespread negativity on the app.
‘Although I am not a particularly sensitive person, I came off X because it is toxic,’ he added. ‘When I was first on there, when it was Twitter, it felt positive. Then it turned very negative. When I first became a pundit, I read the comments. I read everything and it was like, “Oh, I thought I did well today. Do people not like me?”‘
Richards has pivoted into podcasting with Lineker and Alan Shearer and their show has proved popular.
The Rest Is Football is the sixth-most popular podcast in the United Kingdom, according to Spotify, and the most-listened-to of any in the sporting sphere.
Several of their shows throughout the tournament have exceeded 100,000 listens, though that figure still pales in comparison to traditional television audiences.
A peak audience of 18 million viewers tuned in to ITV’s coverage of England vs Norway in the quarter-finals, for example.
Alongside his punditry, Richards is also a manager of Baller League outfit Deportrio alongside former team-mate Daniel Sturridge.
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