The 'Secret Footballer' revealed as tell-all author confirms identity

Martin Macdonald

• 19 Feb 2026 11:01 CST
• 5 min read

Nieuws

The identity of 'The Secret Footballer' has been revealed.

The Secret Footballer is a pseudonym given to a former Premier League footballer who has provided insight into the life of a professional player as well as tell-all stories in newspaper articles and books.

He published five books - I Am The Secret Footballer, Tales From The Secret Footballer, The Secret Footballer's Guide to the Modern Game, The Secret Footballer: Access All Areas, and How to Win: Lessons from the Premier League.

Before publishing, he contributed various articles for The Guardian.

In 2018, The Secret Footballer said that he wanted to reveal his identify but couldn't in fear of being sued due to some of the content in his books.

"I think that the secret footballer was a good idea and one that was well worth exploring," he said on BBC Radio 5 live's At Home With Colin Murray.

"There was an explosion in help for mental illness after the first book and the Football Association and the Professional Footballers' Association decided to act on it, so I'm kind of proud of it. But I think I ran away with it without thinking where I wanted to take it.

"Everyone wants to out me but only I'm going to do that. The issue would be a legal one and I would probably have to bankrupt myself in order to survive. You have to prepare for the worst and, while there are no names in the books, there's a lot of money in football and a lot of people with a lot of money. They don't even have to be proved right they just have to put a case on.

"My autobiography will sell on the back of me outing myself but I can't do it at the moment even though I want to."

👀 One of football’s best-kept secrets… revealed.

Former Premier League striker, Dave Kitson, confirms the truth!

🎥 Watch now: https://t.co/8XSvz5bo8Z#Football #PremierLeague #MentalHealth #Sport #Interview pic.twitter.com/AFvryUjZsQ

— Champions Speakers (@ChampSpeakers) February 17, 2026

For years, the speculation was that The Secret Footballer was in fact former Reading and Stoke striker Dave Kitson.

This week, it was confirmed that The Secret Footballer is...Dave Kitson.

The idea for the articles and books was born out of concerns for the mental health of him and his peers within the game.

"I am The Secret Footballer. I’ve never said that out loud before. It was an idea that came to me when I wasn’t happy with where football was going and I needed an outlet to express it for my own mental health," he said in an interview with the Champions Speakers podcast.

"I’ve been writing since I was a kid. It’s a passion. As I said, I wanted to be a travel writer. The writing was cathartic. It helped me process what was going on in football, things that just didn’t make sense to me at all.

"It started as something that wasn’t about naming names. It was about explaining what happens in the industry and why.

"I would write and leave people to form their own opinions. It was fun for a while, then it bred huge anxiety. I had a career and a big contract. If I’d been outed, I would have been sacked and ostracised. Now everyone has a podcast and an outlet. Back then, it was genuinely new.

"It changed football in this country and led to overhauls at the highest levels, which I’m proud of. But the stress and anxiety were immense.

While there was undoubtedly lighthearted elements about his life as The Secret Footballer, things turned for Kitson following the death of Gary Speed.

"The worst thing that happened was when I wrote a column about mental health called ‘Sometimes There’s Darkness Behind the Light’," he continued.

"Nobody talked about mental health in football then. If you spoke about it, you were seen as weak. I said there was a mental health epidemic and I predicted it was only a matter of time before someone took their own life.

"I submitted it on Friday, it went out Saturday and on Sunday they found Gary Speed dead. That’s when the whole Secret Footballer idea and concept became not fun any more. It gave the column this credibility in the worst possible way and it was really difficult, and I suffered and struggled with guilt for a long time that I hadn’t written that column earlier and that we might have prevented what happened from happening.

"And then I just became so angry at the authorities for being really passive on the issue of mental health and not doing enough and not helping and I still feel anger towards them but fortunately the people that were in those positions are no longer there and things have changed and things of things have got better.

"But that tragedy was just the most horrendous thing that could ever happen I felt such sympathy for his family and it was so unnecessary and that was the day that ‘The Secret Footballer’ went from being a sort of a cult column to this thing that everybody was now going to as this as this sort of bible on football and like I say, it was credibility in the worst possible way, and I just not long after stopped and I just stopped and I disappeared and I stopped writing."