Multilingualism Strikes
a Football Star
By Clo

The football World Cup has just kicked off in Germany, promising an exciting month of sports entertainment. One of the top five players in the world has recently been in the soccer market and world press spotlight, having announced his decision to leave AC Milan for Chelsea London, mainly due to…his son’s multilingualism!

The phenomenal Ukrainian star, Andriy Shevchenko (a.k.a Sheva for his fans), joined AC Milan in 1999 and has built up a glorious career in the past seven seasons, scoring a record 173 goals. While in Italy, he also met the love of his life: American top model Kristen Pazik. The couple, who speak Italian with one another, married in 2001 and their son was born in 2003. Kristen is currently expecting her second child.  Sensibly, the issue of their family language came up. They do not speak nor understand each other’s language, and they do not feel comfortable enough with their command of Italian to consider raising their kids in Italy.
Therefore, despite Sheva’s stardom at AC Milan, they have decided to move to England, where Kristen can be supported by an environmental language that is the same as her maternal language. AC Milan, regrettably, is negotiating the transfer with the Chelsea club.

“The language issue is obviously an excuse,” says NY-based Simone Sandri, a reporter for Italian sports daily Il Corriere dello Sport. “Sheva has been welcomed like in a family at AC Milan and has been treated really well; it is obvious that his decision is dictated by financial reasons; he could have solved the family linguistic dilemma comfortably even in Milan, if he wanted to.”  (His compensation at Chelsea is estimated at 118K UK£ a week).

I might be naïve, but having found myself in a similar situation (that is, raising my kids in France while my command of French is far from perfect), I would like to believe that the fascinating, yet doubt-stirring, facets of multilingualism had more weight in their decision than what the reporters claim. I prefer to believe that in today’s world, where public personalities, especially football stars, run after the extra million bucks and find numerous ways to make their image work for them, there is a man who is a father and a husband first and is seriously putting his child’s linguistic development before his celebrity status (although the latter is far from suffering from the decision!).

Due to the concomitance of the football World cup, the couple was not reachable for a comment. The burning question I had for them was: Once they move to the UK, will they keep speaking Italian to each other?

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Make sure to visit Clo’s column each month where she will share her knowledge, ideas, tips and inspirations. Clo is an Italian native currently based in France with her Belgian partner and raising a quadrilingual child. Learn more about Clo at her MULTI TONGUE KIDS blog: www.multitonguekids.blogspot.com.

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