I felt I could do more’ — Meet former Man City youngster who quit football for Oxford varsity

At just 19, Han Willhoft-King has taken a path few footballers would even consider by walking away from Manchester City’s Under-21s to study at Oxford University.

Considered a straight- A student and also considered one of the top talents to get a break in professional football, Willhoft-King, who started at Tottenham and moved to Manchester at the start of the season, decided to quit football.

Speaking with The Guardian, he admits that most people who heard about his football life before enrolling to study law still don’t understand the choice. He said, “I don’t know many people who, when they reach Man City Under-21s, would pack it in at that point. But I just felt I could be doing more.”

Born in London to a father of Indian and English heritage and a mother with Indonesian, Chinese, and Taiwanese roots, Willhoft‑King stated that the feeling to quit didn’t arrive suddenly but through injuries that kept interrupting his progress.

He suffered his first injury towards the end of the 2021-22 season just after his involvement with first-team training at Tottenham under Antonio Conte, which kept him out for the rest of the calendar.

He would suffer further injuries in his second season as a scholar and then again at City in 2024-25; he was out from September until the new year. After that, with the City Under-21 team settled, he found it impossible to break in.

Deeper than the injuries, the 19-year-old admitted that football left too many empty hours which were characterised by boredom and admitted that his newfound life at Oxford barely leaves him with time.

He said, “I wasn’t enjoying it,” he says. “I don’t know what it was, maybe the environment. I’m bored often, as well. You’d train, you’d come home and you wouldn’t really do anything. If you contrast it to now … I’m struggling to find hours in the day. I’m either studying, going out with friends, playing for the university first team, also my college.

“I always felt understimulated in football. Don’t get me wrong. I still loved it. But I always felt I could be doing more. I was wasting hours of the day. I needed something different and Oxford excited me; the people, too. I guess that’s the reason. Injuries were a big factor but that’s the easy answer. I felt I needed something a bit more … mainly intellectually, which sounds quite pretentious. But, yeah.

He also noted that although he could have forged a strong career in the English Championship, he chose to pursue university education because he wanted something that would last beyond football’s typical 10- to 15-year window. It’s a choice that aligns, perhaps unsurprisingly, with the background of his father, Jörg, a former university lecturer in philosophy.

Say I had a career in League One or the Championship … you make good money. But how much would I enjoy it? In my head I wasn’t sure. Also, best-case scenario – you’ll play for 10, 15 years and after that, what? I thought going to university would provide a platform for me to do something at least for longer than the next 10 to 15 years. So, it’s a bit of a long-term thing, as well.”