Chris Sutton has revealed he is training to become a keynote speaker to businesses on the lucrative lecture circuit.
Former Celtic and Blackburn striker Sutton has moved into punditry since retiring from football in 2007.
The ex-Norwich trainee is no stranger to controversy with his outspoken opinions on TV and radio.
He clashed with Michael Owen last month when he called the former England striker “a caveman”.
The pair disagreed on football’s concussion rules after an incident in Benfica's Champions League clash with Ajax.
The Dutch side's defender Lisandro Martinez clashed heads with Nicolas Otamendi in the first-half and appeared to be affected by the blow, but carried on playing and finished the game.
The incident was just after Leeds defender Robin Koch was forced off after playing on with concussion against Manchester United.
Sutton is a leading advocate for player welfare after his father Mike - also a former footballer - died in 2020 after suffering with dementia.
In December 2020, Sutton stated that football was “in the dark ages” when it comes to facing up to the potentially disastrous consequences of head injuries.
He has argued that players need to be properly assessed in a dressing room by an independent doctor before they can carry on and called for rulemakers IFAB to bring in temporary subs.
It is a stance he continues to advocate even if he brings him into dispute with others like fellow former forward Owen.
But in the meantime Sutton is branching out and has recently been training how to deliver speeches to large audiences of business people.
Sutton,48, said: “It is not easy standing up and speaking in a room with 300 people infront of you.
“It can be daunting.
“That is the whole point of being out of your comfort zone.
“I have played infront of 60,000 people at Celtic every week.
“I was confident in my skill set and this is learning a new skill set.
“There aren’t many footballers who do keynote speaking and want to do it.
“It is something which has interested me for a while.
“I might be awful at it but I actually think it is good to really push myself.
“This is speaking to people who may never have seen me play.
“It is about finding material and linking the business world to my experiences.
“It is good to challenge yourself, I don’t think that is a bad thing.
“I can go and speak about my football experience and I do that around the country.
“This isn’t after dinner speaking, this is going out and talking to businesses.
“It is linking my experiences within football and the media and also my personal life and sharing those experiences and comparing it to things in the business world.
“There are a lot of similarities and characteristics with both worlds.”
Sutton was among the delegates last week on the 'Bespoke Elite Speaker Training' programme created and founded by England rugby international Leon Lloyd and former Premier League football Paul McVeigh, which trains and develops successful individuals from the worlds of sport, business, military and TV to become keynote speakers.
He took part in workshops by among others the artistic director of Les Miserables, Chris Key, who is currently working with Andrew Lloyd Webber on his latest show Cinderella.
Sutton added: “I am always sceptical and wary of things but every session we did I was taking something from it and thoroughly enjoyed it.
“An actor on the first day came in and talked about how to structure story telling.
“We had a director of Les Miserables come in and we did a session with him singing and a bit of acting.
“I was thinking: ‘blimey if people could see me do this’.
“We learned about lots of things like stage presence and how to carry yourself.”
