THE mindless far-right thugs who staged violent anti-immigration demonstrations across England this week and who are set to gather for a “pro-UK” rally in Glasgow later this month, do not strike you as being the most literate of individuals.
But if any of the swivel-eyed morons who attacked police, mosques and asylum-seeker accommodation following a flurry on online disinformation is able to read, they would benefit greatly from getting a hold of a copy of the brilliant new autobiography which the former Celtic defender Rudi Vata has penned.
They would have a far greater understanding of the reasons why so many people flee their own countries in search of a better life overseas, an insight into the ordeals they are forced to endure doing so and an appreciation of just how much refugees can contribute to society after digesting the fascinating tome.
Far more celebrated and successful players than Vata have plied their trade at Parkhead. Few if any of them, though, have such a remarkable story to tell. Football, Freedom and Paradise feels more like an espionage thriller than an ex-sportsman’s memoir at times.
It is over 30 years now since the Albanian internationalist feigned an injury during a European Championship qualifier against France at the Parc des Princes in Paris, walked down the tunnel, out of the stadium and into a local police station and defected to the west.
Yet, his tale is, at a time of heightened political tensions over immigration and an alarming rise in hate crimes against ethnic minorities, as relevant and important now as it has ever been.
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“My experience has been strange and unique,” said Vata, who looks as fit and lean today as he did when he donned a green and white hooped jersey, during a coffee and a chat earlier this week. “I haven’t lived just one life. I have lived so many different lives.”
His first life was in communist Albania in the 1970s and 1980s. “It was bad, very, very bad,” he said. “It was as bad as you could experience. In fact, it could not get any worse.
“There was great poverty because the communists had failed in any kind of strategy they had to keep their people fit and healthy. But fear was the main emotion in the country.
“The country was full of spies. The communists managed to infiltrate your family, to manipulate your relations. They wanted to get something damning out of your mouth so they could use it against you and put you in prison.
“You could end up in a political prison for 25 years for nothing. If you bought a loaf of bread in a shop, say, and complained the bread was too hard it was illegal.
“I believed too much in freedom, freedom of choice, freedom of speech. If somebody dictates what you have to do, what you have to eat, what you have to think, what you have to wear and what you have to hear, you are not living any kind of life. That is how it was in Albania.”
His brother Aleks was the first to escape from the tyranny of the despised, despotic regime. He boarded a fishing boat in the port of Shingjin with some friends and set off in search of salvation.
Vata and his parents did not hear from him in the weeks and months which followed, did not know if he had survived, were unsure if he was alive or dead.
The Dinamo Tirana defender promised his distraught mother and father that he would return home to them before Albania crossed the Iron Curtain to play France in 1991.
“But when I went to France I met some Albanian refugees who informed me that my brother was alive and well and was living in Italy in a church hall. I was able to communicate with him from my hotel reception.
“I then made a plan to stay. I wrote my parents a letter, told them it was best for my future and promised we would be together again soon. I gave the letter to a friend of mine in the national team who was returning home.
“I think my mother and my father felt relief my brother was alive and appreciated I was making the decision for my future. But I know now I am a parent myself how they felt, I understand their emotions.”
Vata did not receive any special privileges from the French authorities because of his celebrity status. “I played in Parc des Princes against a France team that had Didier Deschamps, Laurent Blanc, Eric Cantona and Jean-Pierre Papin in it,” he said. “Then 48 hours later I woke up in a refugee camp with many different nationalities of people in it.
“I was just a normal immigrant. But that was the procedure, the rules were the same for everybody, whether you were an international footballer or a refugee who had jumped in a boat. I had to accept that, start from zero and go through that experience alone.
“I was an enemy of my country, I had betrayed my country. But I tried to convert every negative moment into a positive one. I think you appreciate life much better when you go through those things.
“It is a question of mentality, of how much you believe. Now I look back and think, ‘How did I manage to do that?’ It seems almost impossible. But every day I woke up I would tell myself that it was a day that I had to get through whether it was good or bad.
“If you live in a comfort zone, if you are born into a millionaire’s family, I don’t think you understand life. When you go through pain, you learn, you fall down, you get up again, you make mistakes, you improve. Then you can enjoy life.
“You think, ‘Okay, I was naïve, I was not intelligent enough’. But it is about analysing things, judging your performance. The go sometimes can have a bad affect on you. You have to manage your emotions, your thoughts, your decisions.”
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Fortunately for Vata, communist dictatorships were falling across Eastern Europe at that time and longed-for change eventually came to Albania. He was soon reunited with his parents and his brother and welcomed back into the national team.
It was his performance for his country in a World Cup qualifier against the Republic of Ireland in Dublin in 1992 which led to his transfer to Celtic.
“Liam Brady was watching the game and asked about my availability,” he said. “He spoke to some of the Albanian FA people in the VIP lounge. They told me that Celtic wanted to sign me.
“I got a number for Liam. I could not speak any English at that time. But I could speak Italian thanks to my parents. They had paid for my brother and I to learn a language when I was a boy.
“It was illegal to learn another language in communist Albania. But an old priest who had served 24 years in prison would secretly come twice a week to teach us Italian. Their investment opened the door for me to join Celtic. I communicated with Liam in Italian.
“I had settled in France. I had learned French, I had a good salary with Tours and I was accepted by society there. The lifestyle was good. But when Celtic came I thought, ‘This is a special thing. I want to go there and experience this, I want to learn about British football’. I didn’t want to stay in that comfortable situation.”
His move to Scotland proved every bit as problematic as his early days in France had been to begin with.
“If I am honest, it was very difficult,” he said. “When I arrived in Glasgow I was completely alone. I stayed in the Albany Hotel on my own. I couldn’t even speak to my parents because they didn’t have a telephone. It was a different language, different food, different weather.
“Liam Brady said to me, ‘Your heart must work twice as hard in Scotland than it does in Europe because of the way football is here’. But the training was so, so tough. I would go back to my room afterwards and lie on my bed and physically shake.
“Sometimes I would think, ‘What if my heart stops beating?’ I kept reminding myself that this was my choice, that I made it because it was best for my future and that I would get through it.
“I knew if my heart stopped it would be because I had done it for football, the love of my life. I was prepared to die to be honest. I thought, ‘If I die, I die. What can I do? It is what was meant to be. I will give it my all’. If you want to test your limits, you have to go through those situations. Then you get the results.
“After two weeks, my body started to settle and everything started to become normal. I was fitter than I was before. It was a fantastic feeling. Football is all about sacrificing your breathing.
“The people of Glasgow helped me. They understood my situation and were so friendly and kind. The support they gave me was so brilliant and kept me going. The Scottish people are special to me because in those difficult moments I had so many Glaswegian families who were so kind to me.”
“But the language barrier was a big thing. Every day I would try to learn and improve. I would keep notes after every training session. I would go home every day and listen to the news and write things down.
“Then I would walk into the dressing room the next day and hear Joe Miller, Charlie Nicholas and Peter Grant speak and not understand a single word they said. I would think, ‘What is going on here? What kind of language are they speaking here?’
“But everything was about adjusting, even your ears needed to be sharper. The characters were different. Paul McStay would speak to me in a peaceful way, a calm way, a relaxed way. I could understand him. But the other Glasgow guys would speak at 200-miles-per-hour.”
Vata continued: “They would make jokes about me. They saw things with me they had never seen before, especially my clothing. I was a little bit dated when it came to fashion. I didn’t care because it was who I was.
“But the Glasgow guys loved that, enjoyed poking fun at what you were wearing. I was not embarrassed. I thought, ‘Okay, now I have to learn. It isn’t my fault that I was born in a country where I can’t improve. But it will be my fault if I remain an idiot!” I accepted being behind.”
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Celtic lagged far behind Rangers on and off the park at that time and there was constant unrest in the stands. Matters finally came to a head and Fergus McCann finally wrested control of his childhood heroes away from the widely-reviled board in 1994 with the receivers minutes away from being called in.
“It all changed then,” said Vata. “There was a sense of insecurity. You could see in people’s faces that they were anxious. The situation was not getting any better. But when Fergus took over you could feel hope. It was a little revolution which created a platform for better things.”
Vata was frozen out of the first team for long periods after Tommy Burns replaced Lou Macari as manager. But he eventually won around the Celtic great and was in the starting line-up when the Parkhead club ended a six year trophy drought with victory over Airdrie in the Scottish Cup final at Hampden in 1995.
“Tommy was Celtic through and through,” he said. “I had some great experiences with him and I also had some bad experiences. But in life things are not always going to be in your favour.
“At the beginning, I don’t think he liked me. I had to prove to him with my work and dedication that I was good enough to be one of his players. He realised that my attitude on and off the park was top class and he brought me into the team.
“He surprised me. All of a sudden, he called me into his office and said, ‘You’re going to play tonight. Are you ready?’. I said, ‘Of course, I am ready. I have been working six months for this opportunity’.
“If you work hard enough, eventually God will be on your side. Tommy was a holy man and he realised I deserved a chance. I played at right-back, which was a totally new position for me. I always played centre-back. The reason they used me there was because I was a very fit boy. I scored against Rangers and did a decent job.
“I always knew I had something. I earned the respect of the boys, of John Collins, Tom Boyd, Paul McStay, Pierre van Hooijdonk, Andy Thom, all the big stars of the team.
“Winning the Scottish Cup was a special moment. I was the first Albanian to lift a trophy in the west. My country was getting worse and worse at that time, I was getting better and better. For me, it was just a question of growing. I loved the opportunity.”
Vata looked set to leave Celtic at the start of the following year only for his departure to be blocked so that Brazilian striker Jardel could not receive the non-EU work permit he needed to sign for Rangers. He finally moved on months later and spent the next nine seasons playing in Cyprus, Germany, Albania and Japan.
But he had met and married Scottish girl Ann Frances during his time at Parkhead and they returned to his spiritual home when he had retired. He worked as an agent for a while as they raised their two boys and worked with players such as Slavan Bilic, Aidan McGeady, Garry O’Connor. But he describes that profession as “a shark’s game”.
These days, he runs Vata Vision Football Management with his son Ruan and endeavours to give something back to the people of the country he feels he owes so much to.
“I am not running after the money,” he said. “Yes, money is important. But I am a football man. Without football, without training, I cannot imagine life. It is important to stay fit and healthy and to do all you can to be in God’s way. We work a lot with young boys keep them motivated and to develop them.
“I would give everything for football. There is a saying in Italian that goes, ‘What you give in life does not always come back, but what you give is what you are’.”
Football, Freedom and Paradise: My Story by Rudi Vata with Gerard McDade is published by Pitch Publishing and is available to buy now.
