Usain Bolt has set himself a two-week deadline to find a new club or else park his dream of making the grade as a professional footballer.
The Jamaican sprinter had been on trial with Central Coast Mariners, but failed to agree a permanent contract upon conclusion after demanding roughly 2,000 times more in the way of salary than the A-League side could afford to offer him.
Though he did manage to score a couple of goals in a specially-arranged friendly against a team of local jobbers, Bolt’s footballing prowess was not universally commended by the wider A-League community, with Perth Glory striker Andy Keogh describing the 32-year-old sprinter as having a “touch like a trampoline“.
Since parting company with the Mariners, Bolt claims that he’s received plenty of interest but, should nothing come to fruition in the next few weeks, he’s also willing to admit defeat.
As quoted by Eurosport, the Olympian laid down the following ultimatum on Wednesday:
With Central Coast, we couldn’t work out the contract stuff so that’s dead, but I’ve got a lot of offers from other clubs out there.
Now we’re just trying to figure out what [to do]. We’ll make a decision before the end of November if I’m going to go to another club or call it actually quits.
There’ll always be some club out there hungry enough for the PR, but the basic fact of the matter is that Bolt – surprise, surprise – is probably too old and definitely nowhere near good enough to cut it.
The whole thing was an indulgent vanity project from the start and, in years to come, that’s all it’ll ever be looked back upon as.