Man United title winner makes bizarre career change after retiring from football

Imagine turning up to the office and finding out that the guy who nicked your seat is a Premier League title winner. Good luck getting it back. 

That may be the case for workers in Copenhagen as former Manchester United goalkeeper Anders Lindegaard has taken a job as a business developer with global banking firm UBS.

The 40-year-old spent five seasons with the Red Devils after joining in 2010 and made 29 appearances for them.

He was an important part of their 2012-13 Premier League-winning squad, making 10 outings in the league as a back-up to David de Gea. He kept clean sheets in his first five games at United and wanted to rival De Gea long-term, though he never became a regular. 

Lindegaard hung up his gloves in 2022 after winding down his career at Helsingborgs IF in Swede – but may want a new pair for any early-morning commutes to the office.

The 40-year-old claimed he wants to help ‘improve’ football in his new role with the bank 

And the father of three, who earned five caps for Norway, explained his latest move in a lengthy LinkedIn post and branded himself ‘Anders Lindegaard 2.0’. 

‘New beginnings, new job, new career,’ he wrote. 

‘I’ve started a position as a business developer at UBS. My role is to help the bank better understand successful athletes and offer them a meaningful and valuable service from the leading wealth manager. An ambition that holds many interesting components, which I will update on as it develops over the next couple of months. 

‘I’ll always be an athlete by nature. Helping other athletes navigate through their sports adventure seems both natural and meaningful to me. In that sense, I see myself and my role as being hired by UBS but working for the athletes.

‘For me personally, this is the start of a second career. I always wanted to stay within football, but I didn’t want to work inside the lines of the pitch. I’ve done that my whole life, and it seems timely for me to try something new. Learn new things. Develop new skills. 

‘In my new role, I’ll still navigate within the industry, thus utilizing my knowledge and experience from sports. Football is a huge industry in Europe. Yet, it still holds a significant potential for improvement. Football can simply be better. My personal ambition is to take part in driving this improvement. 

According to Glassdoor, which collects salary reports, the base pay for a business developer at UBS is between £81,000 and £88,000.

Looking back on his time at United, Lindegaard said in 2022: ‘I probably did what was expected but not what I dreamt. 

Lindegaard made 29 outings for the Red Devils but never dislodged David de Gea long-term

‘Why? I’ve concluded that Anders Lindegaard at 100% could make a difference. It was not enough to be 90% and I dropped to 60%, God knows how low, with the injury.’ 

Lindegaard started his career at Odense in his homeland before joining Alesund and then United. He also spent time at Kolding, Preston North End, West Brom, and Burnley.