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Football

28th Jul 2018

Eddie Hearn shares class story of Raheem Sterling’s holiday gesture

"What a guy to do that. These two boys haven't stopped talking about it since."

Simon Lloyd

Raheem Sterling is no stranger to making headlines

It’s finally been noticed by lots of football fans in recent months that, unfairly, the headlines Sterling does make often portray him negatively.

This became most obvious following stories about the gun tattoo on his leg earlier this summer, despite him providing a perfectly reasonable explanation for it. Dig a little deeper, however, and you’ll find plenty of other examples of how the England international has been the subject of bizarre stories in the British press – many of which focusing on his lifestyle away from football.

Several examples of this were put together by Adam Keyworth in a widely shared thread of tweets which was circulated shortly after the story about Sterling’s gun tattoo was featured in the papers.

In contrast, many of the people who have met Sterling only have only positive things to say about him. He’s a polite, quiet young man who just so happens to be a very good footballer to boot.

Judging by the video below, this was very much what Eddie Hearn thought of him after a chance meeting in Ibiza this summer.

The boxing promoter explains how Sterling had been on a beach with his family at the time. Hearn was made aware that he was there by his friend’s young sons, who recognised the Manchester City forward. After persuasion from the boys, Hearn eventually went over and introduced himself, well aware that the 23-year-old would probably want to be left alone with his family following his recent return from the World Cup.

In fact, this wasn’t the case at all.

“He played football with these two kids on the beach. They were doing kick-ups for a couple of minutes.”

Explaining that he’d told the youngsters to leave him alone after a short while, Hearn explains how Sterling had insisted they continued with their kick about.

“I don’t know Sterling, but… what a guy to do that. These two boys have not stopped talking about it since.”

See? Despite some of what you might have stumbled across in the press, Sterling is actually a really nice bloke.