Tennis legend Boris Becker has sent a word of warning to Lamine Yamal after the Barcelona teenager’s rise to fame in the last few years.
After making his Barcelona debut at the age of 15, Yamal has gone onto hit stardom, winning the likes of LaLiga and the European Championship before turning 18 – the age he is now.
He came second in the Ballon d’Or rankings on Monday evening, finishing second to Ousmane Dembele, and lifted the Kopa Trophy again for the second year running.
But he has also made headlines for different reasons in recent months. There was rich interest in his love life when he was pictured holidaying with an OnlyFans model in the off-season, and he was was accused of exploiting people with dwarfism and ‘hiring’ women based on their measurements at his 18th birthday party.
He later said of the events: ‘I wasn’t mad. I found it funny. They tried to smear it in many ways. A woman said I chose the girls one way or another, and it was all a lie. Then there was the thing about the waiters, who were working there.’
Now the season is up and running again, focus has turned to his footballing achievements. And that’s the way it should be, according to Becker, who can relate.
‘Lamine is wonderful,’ Becker told TalkSport. ‘He’s winning everything. He’s the best young player in the world right now. He reminds me of myself when I was 17. With him, my alarm bells ring.
‘You only have to look at what Lamine Yamal is going through these days. I think he has a very high risk of facing certain difficulties in 10 or 15 years. In his case, he comes from very humble origins, and now he and his entire family are rich, and a lot of people are going to approach him out of interest.
‘He’s lost all his privacy. He needs to have two or three serious people around him. He needs to choose his friends, trust his family, and build a safety net.’
Becker knows what it’s like to taste success at a young age. He won Wimbledon at 17 – still the youngest player to do so – and went onto lift a total of six Grand Slam titles, including two more Wimbledon titles.
But the German didn’t welcome the fame, and admitted that he may have preferred to have had the success further down the line.
‘When I won Wimbledon at 17, I was still trying to grow up and find my place in the world,’ he said. ‘After you win, whatever you do becomes global news and makes headlines in the biggest newspapers.
‘I’m happy to have won three Wimbledons, but maybe at 17 I was too young. I was still a kid.’
