Former Premier League star Stephen Carr has largely left football behind since retiring in 2013, with the ex-Tottenham, Newcastle and Birmingham defender now running a chain of bars, restaurants and nightclubs in Spain.
During his playing career, Carr made the PFA's Premier League Team of the Year but he was forced to retire in 2013 due to a knee injury. Carr first got involved with La Sala while he was still playing, with football agent Rob Segal and his former Spurs teammate David Bentley also involved.
In an interview with Tottenham in 2021, the Irishman said he "moved to Spain straight away" to focus on the business after retiring and admitted he had no real interest in getting into coaching. "As a coach, you're in early and home late so you need to have a real desire and hunger," he said.
"For me, I don't have any desire for that - you either love it or you don't. If you don't love it enough, you should never get into it. So, coaching never entered my mind. Instead, I moved to Spain straight away because I'm involved in restaurants and a beach club over there.
"I thought I'd go there, it'd be a different experience. I had the freedom that I could do that. The hospitality industry is obviously different to football in that you're not going in with a group of lads to train, you're training on your own, but I never thought of it like that.
"I saw it as 'your time's up, you need to go, move on to whatever next you're going to do in your life'." Carr previously told the Sunday Sun shortly after his retirement that the La Sala venues he owns had become a hotspot for celebrities.
"From day one when we opened La Sala it has been excellent and it has just got better and better," he said. "Now we've opened another in San Pedro and hopefully the success will continue. You know the formula is working when clients are waiting up to four weeks for a reservation and we are being visited by the likes of Sir Alan Sugar, Eva Longoria, Katie Price and Jamie Oliver.
"I wanted to try something different from football. Everyone said it is quite risky because a lot of bars don’t do well financially. I am proud of what has been achieved.
"We've created places that people want to visit and that are constantly busy." La Sala's website also lists a number of sports stars including Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua, Erling Haaland, Jurgen Klopp and Harry Maguire as regular visitors to their venues.
